The Demigod Tales
by TheChronicler137
Summary: A compendium of short tales regarding everyone's favourite demigods, which a certain Mr Riordan was, for a variety of reasons, prevented from publishing. This is the written record of my various forms of correspondence with a pair of demigods doing a favour for their associate, one Perseus Jackson.
1. Foreword

Foreword

Something true remains true even if no-one believes it.

This was a lesson that I learnt the hard way. For reasons unbeknownst to myself, I was approached recently by one Mstr Thomas Trent, and his brother Mstr Dante Trent, first through electronic communication, and then in person. To my great surprise, they convincingly vindicated the theory that Richard Riordan, who readers of this document would no doubt be acquainted with, was, in fact, privy to secrets that have been hidden from most of humanity for millennia.

Additionally, I was informed that the presentation of the story of Percy Jackson and the Olympians as a piece of commercial fiction has had side-effects: the meddling of mortal executives and editors has resulted in certain stories from Camp Half-Blood never being published. And thus, in response to this, Mstr Perseus Jackson and his associates have dispatched these two gentlemen to find a willing publisher not constrained by the force of the almighty dollar.

And they found me.

They have promised to deliver the material that Perseus Jackson and his associates desired to publish to me. I do not know why I was selected for this task, but I shall release them through the medium of this website as requested. Granted, some of these stories may have been refused publication due to their lack of entertainment value (or other inherent deficit in merit), but it is my sincerest wish, and, I believe, that of Mstr Perseus Jackson himself (and his associates), that those who have fallen in love with the world of Percy Jackson and the Olympians enjoy these tales nonetheless.

On that note, I bid the reader a pleasant experience reading The Demigod Tales.

Best Regards,

"TheChronicler137"

**A/N Said demigods informed me that they had been alerted to my existence by a specific video. If anyone's interested, I've put the link in my profile.**

**The stories that I have been ordered to publish constitute the bulk of the content of each chapter. The events that led to my reception of the source materials for those stories and the corresponding orders are described in the author notes.**


	2. Percy Jackson and the Lovers' Mist

Percy Jackson and the Lovers' Mist

**A/N (Information that may reveal my identity or location may or may not have been redacted.)**

**The shrill sound of the doorbell echoed faintly downstairs, disrupting my Owl City.**

**These little intrusions into my consciousness as I wrote were annoying, but I could tolerate them. I spent a moment's thought wondering who it could've been, then brushed it aside and turned back to my work.**

**I was halfway through the next sentence when, through the music, I thought I heard someone calling my name.**

**I sighed as I pulled out my earbuds, paused the music, locked my laptop, and tore down the stairs, eager to settle whatever it was as soon as possible so I could get back faster to writing.**

**"John, someone's here to see you!" called my younger brother Kevin from the living room. He was watching another one of those misleading documentaries I had forsworn long before.**

**I frowned. A visitor? The hormones in my blood immediately implanted a fantasy in my mind: _of course_ it was a pretty girl come to whisk me off on a thrilling international adventure, curiously tailored to my specific skillset, with the fate of the world hanging in the balance, and whom I would fall in love with during the course of said adventure and eventually marry.**

**This sort of fantasy occurred with alarming frequency.**

**Standing outside the gates were two people who were decidedly not pretty girls.**

**One was a boy of about 13, ****burly, slightly taller than average, with short, messy, slightly curly black hair, and slightly tanned skin. He wore a black hoodie and jeans with black combat boots. He was swishing and turning a pencil through the air.**

**I could tell that the other, standing next to him, was his elder brother. He was about 15, tall, with short black hair swept to the left, dark brown eyes and fair skin. He wore a blue short-sleeved T-shirt, khaki trousers and brown hiking boots.**

**His eyes lit up when he saw me at the door.**

**"Mstr John, I take it?" he asked me, with a slight British accent.**

**His brother scowled at him.**

**"Quit using the phony accent, bro," he said, stowing his pencil in his pants pocket.**

**The elder brother smiled impishly.**

**"No. And now, Mstr John, if you don't mind, could you let us in? I'm Thomas Trent, and this is my brother, Dante Trent."**

**My eyes widened.**

**"Come to my room."**

* * *

**"So…you're telling me, that all of this," I held up my copy of _The Mark of Athena_, "is true?"**

**Thomas nodded.**

**"Met the boy myself."**

**I sat down heavily and began massaging my temples.**

**"But..."**

**"Proof?" Thomas raised an eyebrow. A slight smile tugged at his lips.**

**"Yeah," I said.**

**Thomas stretched out his hand over my face.**

**My vision turned a luminescent blue.**

**As it faded, Thomas lowered his hand and recited, "'I've removed the filter from your eyes / which covered them before, so now, / you'll easily distinguish gods from men.' Athena, _The Iliad_, by Homer."**

**He opened his palm, and I watched as a blob of water drifted towards his hand from the toilet. The experience was...surreal, to say the least.**

**The blob split into two, and each small blob shaped itself into an ice figurine wielding a sword, except with water at the joints.**

**The two mini ice warriors began to duel each other on Thomas' palm.**

**I blinked and rubbed my eyes.**

**What was happening here defied the laws of physics. Yet I knew it was really happening. Not an illusion, or a hallucination.**

**"So...so you're a son of Poseidon?"**

**Thomas laughed.**

**"Not quite. We're Sons of the House of Trent. Each one of us receives a random set of powers from all the gods."**

**"It's a long story," Dante said, pulling out a dagger from his pocket. Its colour…well, I suppose I could call it "black" but that didn't capture the malevolence and death it radiated.**

**I backed away from it instinctively, not entirely sure why I was doing so.**

**Thomas noticed my discomfort, and smiled.**

**"Dante, the Stygian iron's scaring our friend."**

**He turned to me.**

**"Don't mind him. That's just his—"**

**"Shanking knife," Dante said, expression deadpan.**

**He waved around his, um, shanking knife with alarming indiscretion.**

**I took another step back, just in case.**

**Thomas cleared his throat.**

**"Right. So, we took the risk of using computers to contact you—"**

**"And then fought, like, a _hundred_ monsters, each time," Dante interrupted.**

**Thomas ignored him and continued.**

**"—and then you said you wanted proof. Fair enough; I don't want these materials to be logged in some company's servers anyway."**

**He produced an envelope.**

**"There are reports, diary entries, and transcripts in here. They all tell the same story, but you're the author. We need you to put it together and write it down."**

**I accepted the package gingerly, as though it may explode any moment (though I wouldn't be entirely surprised if it did).**

**"Mstr Jackson wanted this published, but Mr Riordan said he wouldn't do it. So Mstr Jackson asked us to find someone who would. That someone is you. So, do us all a favour and publish it on that website."**

**I considered. I'd never been great at making decisions, and now two demigods were asking me to synthesise an account from primary sources (that would, with all likelihood, be treated as a mere work of fiction), at the request of _Percy Jackson_, whom I had just discovered was a real person. It was…rather overwhelming, to say the least.**

**"Dude, we're asking you to help publish stuff for _the _Percy Jackson," Dante said. "It's, like, a great honour! A rare opportunity! You should be happy!"**

**I sighed.**

**"Alright."**

**"Yes!" Dante punched the air.**

**The two of them performed a somewhat complex ritual of fist bumps, slaps and shakes.**

**"By the way, the events described in those documents occur about a week and a half after the events of _Percy Jackson and the Staff of Hermes_," Thomas said, as they stood up and headed for the door.**

**As he was about to step through after his brother, he turned back to me.**

**"And once again, thank you, Mstr John," he said.**

**And then he left.**

**I sighed, looking at the blank, innocuous-looking envelope. It seemed crazy to think that I had just received it from two demigods. In fact, it seemed crazy to think that demigods existed at all, until a few weeks ago. And even up till the moment where Thomas' ice sculptures started fighting, I had my doubts. But here I was, with the documents, and orders from two demigods about what to do with them.**

**I sighed again, sat down, opened and unlocked my laptop, created a new Word Document, and began to write.**

Annabeth lay on the couch, staring at the ceiling. It was the weekend, so her Dad had taken her back to San Francisco to spend some time with her family. He was supposed to be taking her back to New York just about now, but a certain son of Poseidon had made special arrangements with her to take care of that.

_Come on, come on_, she thought.

Finally, there came the knock on the door that she had been waiting all day for.

"YES!" she cried, springing to her feet and startling her brothers who were running around the living room playing.

She dashed to the door, and pushed it open so hastily that she was worried she broke something.

But she didn't care. Standing in the door frame was a tall, muscular, handsome young man in a blue t-shirt and shorts. He had a head of jet-black hair, and cute sea-green eyes. He was, of course, the one and only Percy Jackson, saviour of the world and Annabeth's beloved boyfriend of five and a half weeks.

She gave him a quick kiss on the lips.

"You're late, Seaweed Brain."

He smirked.

"Come on, Wise Girl. Ready for the beach?"

Annabeth waved goodbye to her family as Percy led her by the hand to his stepdad Paul's car.

She watched as her stepmother closed the door, then turned around to face her boyfriend.

"We finally get—"

Percy suddenly stopped.

Annabeth blinked.

"Percy? What's wrong?"

He pointed in front of them. At first, she could only see Paul standing by his car, but then she realised that between them and Paul was a region of shimmering rainbow light.

The shimmer solidified. The two demigods realised that they were receiving an Iris-Message from Chrion, their trainer.

Annabeth looked disappointed, but she quickly hid it.

"Chiron! What is it?"

The centaur smiled.

"Hello, Percy and Annabeth. Sorry if I'm interrupting, but a certain goddess has requested to see you. Nothing too serious, but you need to come down to camp immediately."

An iridescent gem appeared in front of the Iris-Message.

"This is a gift from the goddess. Pack your things, and change up. Break the gem when you're done. It'll teleport you to camp."

"Alright, Chiron. Just give us a few minutes," Percy said, grabbing the gem.

Chiron nodded, and the image dissolved.

Annabeth sighed.

"Great. We finally get to go to the beach together, and then Hera decides to call us to the other side of the country for some stupid quest."

"Hera?" Percy asked.

"Of course it's Hera! She couldn't just drop a statue of herself on me while we were defending Olympus. _Nooooo_, she had to ruin my date with my boyfriend, too."

"Well, maybe she'll take us someplace romantic as a reward! Like, you know, how Hermes brought us to Paris."

Annabeth snorted.

"_Hera_? Dream on, Seaweed Brain."

"We could always go to the camp beach."

She sighed. "I suppose. Oh well, we have to finish Hera's stupid quest anyway. Let's get this over with quickly."

* * *

Percy and Annabeth materialised in front of the Big House. Chiron was waiting for them.

They walked up to him as he nervously swished his tail.

"Come in," he told them.

They followed the centaur as he clip-clopped into the Big House. And there, sitting by a table, was the beautiful Aphrodite, goddess of love.

Annabeth blinked.

"Looks like you were wrong about this one, Wise Girl," he whispered in her ear.

She punched his arm.

"Percy! Annabeth! Please, take a seat."

She beamed at Percy as he pulled out a seat for Annabeth.

"What did I tell you?" she asked. "True love."

Percy turned redder than a tomato.

"What is she talking about?" she asked him.

"Oh…um…you know, when you got captured by Atlas?"

"Yeah…?"

"Aphrodite sort of found me and showed me the real reason why I was on the quest. I wasn't going to save Artemis, or stop the Titans from getting Bessie. Even though I didn't want to admit it then…I went because you were in trouble, and…and I loved you."

Annabeth blushed, as a tide of emotions swelled within her.

"That…that's so sweet, Percy," she said.

They held each other's gazes for a second, and then surged into each other's lips.

Aphrodite clapped her hands gleefully.

"Oh, the two of you are so _cute_ together! I've never seen two demigods so in love since…since…"

Annabeth withdrew from her boyfriend, still blushing heavily, partly because Aphrodite seemed to be about to mention something serious, and partly because she just realised that Chiron was quietly watching the whole thing.

"So, uh, Lady Aphrodite, what's the quest?"

"Well, you see, my dear demigods, I've lost my hairbrush."

Percy and Annabeth looked at each other. Hermes had mentioned how frequently this happened. They just couldn't believe they had won the lottery.

She laughed cutely.

"No, no. Not _that_ thing. _Of course_ the goddess of love has more than _one_ hairbrush. But my favourite…well, that was given to one of my daughters a few decades ago. You see, she and one of Hecate's sons were madly in love with each other. But once, during their anniversary, he took her to a special place for a picnic. She asked me for my hairbrush, and of course I gave it to her. They were such a lovely couple. But then…then they had a fight…and…and…"

Annabeth covered her mouth.

"He…"

"No, of course not. But while they were distracted, a monster managed to ambush and kill them. The place became shrouded in Mist, both the magical and the normal kind, and not one of the demigods I sent to get my hairbrush came back."

"But you're a goddess. Can't you get it back yourself?" Percy asked.

"No, no, that'll be too easy. This is the perfect setup for a good, tragic love story like theirs."

"Why? What happens to the demigods who go there?"

Aphrodite smiled mysteriously.

"You'll see. And I'm sure that if anyone could get it back, it's you two. I mean, after saving Olympus and all, this should be easy, right?"

Before either of them could protest, she snapped her fingers, and they disappeared in a flash of pink light.

Chiron sighed.

"You sent them to the Lovers' Mist, didn't you?"

She nodded, but her expression was no longer playful.

"You of all people should know that's a suicide mission, right? What a waste of two perfectly good campers!"

Aphrodite suddenly sounded a lot more serious than she had in quite a while.

"I'm not just the goddess of love, Chiron. Most people would know me as the goddess of desire, though they may call it love. Some kinds of desire can be satisfied by anyone, but love is special. It can only be shared between two people. The Mist really is a test of love. Those two love each other more than anyone I've met in years, and they're demigods, too. If they come back from this, their love will be even stronger than before. Then, maybe, they'll be prepared for what's about to happen."

* * *

Percy had a hard time imagining how this could have been a nice picnic spot.

Aphrodite had not been kidding about the mist. He could barely see a few metres ahead of himself. The grass squelched beneath his every step, and he kept imagining figures moving through the fog. He knew it was probably the magical Mist, but there was no way to be sure that they weren't actually monsters.

But panic began rising in his chest when he realised that he had no idea where Annabeth was. The mist that swirled around him was…oppressive. Normally he'd be able to see through cloud of water droplets like how he saw underwater (except with greater difficulty), but this mist wasn't giving him anything at all. It wouldn't even respond to him like normal water would; he could only move the mist by brushing it away with his hands.

"Percy?" a familiar voice came from near him.

He yelped and jumped into the air.

"Annabeth!" he scowled.

"That's almost as scary as when you use your baseball cap!"

She chuckled slightly.

"Now don't move," he said.

"Stretch out your hand so I can find you."

"OK," she complied.

He extended his hand into the mist and groped about until he grabbed hold of her wrist.

He heaved a sigh of relief.

He interlaced his fingers with hers.

"Stay close to me, Annabeth. I don't want to lose you in here."

"Me neither, Percy," she said. She sounded a lot more timid than normal.

But no sooner had they spoken, than a powerful force tore between them. It felt like a hurricane gale, but was more was primal, angry and hostile.

Their hands separated, and they stumbled through the mist.

"Percy?" he heard Annabeth's voice.

It sounded distant.

"Annabeth!" he cried, running in the direction of her voice.

"Where are you?"

"I'm over here!" she shouted, but she sounded even further off, and her voice came from somewhere behind him.

"Annabeth!" he called out.

He could feel his eyes dampening and fear welling up in his chest.

_No! Where is she!? I have to find her!_

He started to run in one direction, but realised that he had spun around too many times to know if that was the right one.

He stopped and listened hard.

Silence.

"ANNABETH!" he screamed, anguished.

"Percy!"

Percy perked up. The voice was feminine and familiar, but it wasn't Annabeth's.

Still, if a friend of his had wandered into this place, she'd need his help to get out.

"Who's there?" Percy shouted, as he uncapped Riptide, walking cautiously in the direction of the voice.

"Percy? Is that you?"

Somewhat surprisingly, the voice was actually growing louder and clearer as he approached it. The devilish force that had separated him from Annabeth seemed to have ceased its operation.

But Percy was far more surprised when he realised whose voice it was.

"Calypso?" he asked.

"Percy!" she cried.

Stepping out of the thick mist was one of the most beautiful girls he had ever seen.

Not 'hot'. Not 'pretty'. Not 'cute'.

_Beautiful_.

He had forgotten how absolutely stunning Calypso was. Waves of cinnamon washed over him. She was wearing the same dress that she had been on Ogygia: a white, sleeveless Greek dress, with a low, gold-trimmed neckline. Her eyes were almond, both in colour and in shape, her hair caramel, braided on one side, and her skin the colour of a ripe, juicy peach (A/N OK, now I'm hungry). And the tendrils of mist that still wrapped around her made her look even more mystical.

She wasn't perfect, like Aphrodite. But she was far more beautiful than the goddess, because her beauty was human. _Warm_.

"Calypso…you're…you're beautiful," he stammered out.

She turned slightly, bowing her head and blushing.

He remembered his exact thoughts as he left Ogygia: _For the rest of my life I would always be thinking about her.__She would always be my biggest _what if.

It was true. Some nights, when he was staring at the ceiling, trying to fall asleep, the image of her tender smile, her gentle touch, the scent of cinnamon…snatches of memories would just drift by. And he would be sad when they were gone.

He had carried his thoughts about her all the way to the final battle with Kronos. He had asked the gods to free her. But he hadn't considered what he would do if he ran into her.

And, truth to be told, recently, he had been thinking about her less and less. Ever since…

_Annabeth._

The name jolted him out of the (metaphorical) spell Calypso had cast on him.

He felt torn up inside. Calypso was more enchanting to him than a goddess, without even trying or wanting to. She could turn his legs to jelly just by being there. All this slowed him down, made it so tempting to just...forget everything, let the world take care of itself, and _be _with her.

Normally, he would run anything that could have this sort of quest-disrupting effect through with Riptide the second he realised what was going on. But he knew she wasn't doing it on purpose. She didn't even want to have that kind of power over him, much less exercise it by restraining him. But she couldn't help it. It filled him with pity and frustration. She looked so shy and fragile and delicate, he just wanted to throw everything aside, scoop her up in his arms, bring her someplace safe and comfort her. The idea of doing anything to hurt her wasn't merely repulsive, it was utterly alien. Not even up for discussion.

It just wasn't fair to either of them.

And then there was Annabeth. He still remembered meeting her. He remembered how he'd thought she looked like a princess when he first saw her. He remembered the first thing she'd said to him, "You drool when you sleep."

Technically, the first thing was "What will happen at the summer solstice?", but he wasn't fully conscious yet. At any rate, the emotional memories were too strong for him to be worried about technicalities right then.

A smile tugged at his lips as the crack in Calypso's involuntary spell widened. Memories rushed out like a torrent. All the moments he'd shared with his girlfriend. All the times they'd gone into battle together. The life-and-death situations they'd been in. And the peaceful moments, like their night in Paris. Hermes' midnight deadline was, on hindsight, surprisingly appropriate, given his first memories of her.

"I am never, _ever_ going to make things easy for you, Seaweed Brain. Get used to it," he'd remembered her telling him, just before she kissed him, before they had been dunked in the lake (immediately after which they had kissed each other again).

His eyes were fixed on Calypso, but his mind wandered, trawling through his the past, stringing together his memories of his beloved Annabeth. And not just the memories of _her_. He recalled the memories of the emotions she stirred up in him, the pure joy that filled his heart to bursting whenever she kissed him, the tingle of electricity that spread over him whenever they touched…

And suddenly, as though he was watching the pieces of a puzzle fall into place, he realised the one thing that all these memories were telling him.

He loved Annabeth.

Every fibre in his body yearned to be with her. She was at the forefront of his mind almost constantly. He would rather be cast into Tartarus than see a single hair on her head come to harm.

He wasn't sure about how they'd started out, but right then, he knew one thing with absolute certainty: every part of his being was inflamed with a total, all-consuming love for Annabeth. He was completely and utterly devoted to her.

As he felt Calypso's hold over him weakening, he started to realise that she looked an awful lot like Annabeth. The more he stared at her, the more vivid the memories, the emotions, and the resemblance became.

"Calypso," he took her hands, brushing aside the unusual similarity he'd just begun to notice.

"I just want you to know…I loved you too, Calypso. You're a wonderful person, and even more beautiful than Aphrodite."

He thought he saw her cringe, but it was probably because she was afraid of incurring the jealous ire of the goddess.

But slowly, she turned to face him. Her eyes glimmered with curiosity and gratitude, as though she'd never been complimented that way before. Her arms fell from their shy, guarded position. Being able to gaze upon her in her entirety only made her more enchantingly beautiful, but Percy kept his mind on his girlfriend.

"But…you know, Annabeth? My friend? She's…a lot more than that now."

He saw, reflected in her eyes, the sadness and regret in his own. He hated to do this to her, but he knew he had to, because he loved Annabeth, and Annabeth loved him.

The resemblance was starting to grow unsettling.

"I love you, Calypso. But I love Annabeth too."

_So much more than I love you_, he wanted to add, but even he knew that was probably a terrible thing to say.

"And I want to be with her."

"I'm sorry, but she's the one I love," he said. "I _have_ to be with her. I can't fight it. I'm starting to understand that now. But I want you to know, I still care about you. You're free from the curse now, Calypso. Don't waste it on me. You can go out there, find someone else you can't help falling in love with, and live happily ever after."

She looked up. Hope shone in her eyes.

"We can still be friends, though."

She considered for a few moments, and then nodded.

"Yes. I'd be very lucky to have a friend like you, Percy."

He smiled, and took her hand.

"Come on, let's get out of this mist. And then you can go fall in love with someone you can be with."

It was difficult to believe that this teenager was actually a mythical, millennia-old immortal. The fact that she was shorter than him didn't help much.

But no sooner had he taken two steps than her hand dissolved into mist.

Percy stumbled as his hand passed through the space that her hand used to occupy.

He whirled about in a panic.

"Calypso!" he cried.

Once more, he was alone, in the oppressive, silent and unfeeling mist.

He sighed heavily.

"Calypso!" he called out.

"Annabeth!"

There was no reply.

Percy trudged through the unending mist, calling out their names. He had no way of telling which way he was going.

"ANNABETH!" he shouted at the top of his lungs.

"PERCY!" he heard her call out faintly.

His capacity for rational thought immediately abandoned him. Ignoring his previous experience with running straight towards the source of her voice, he tore through the mist, his thoughts preoccupied with doing everything in his power to ensure Annabeth's safety.

* * *

"PERCY!" Annabeth screamed his name again.

Tears welled up in her eyes. Where was he?

She slowed down, and sized up the situation.

She was completely alone in a mysterious mist. She had been torn away from her boyfriend by a gale-force…um…force which had no effect on the mist. Running towards his voice took her further away from him. And now he wasn't even responding.

She checked herself for anything that could be of any use.

All she had was her baseball cap and her knife.

But all of a sudden, the sight of the knife brought to mind her old crush, Luke.

It was as vivid as the vision-dreams demigods tended to get. She could practically feel Luke's fingers around her wrist, mere moments after he dodged the hammer she had hurled straight at his face.

"_No more monsters!_" she screamed, kicking his legs. "_Go away!_"

"_It's okay!_" he tried to hold her.

"_Thalia, put your shield away! You're scaring her!_"

Thalia touched the shield she was carrying and it shrunk to a bracelet. She dropped the spear, and bent down so she was at eye level with Annabeth.

"_Hey, little girl_," she said gently.

"_It's all right. We're not going to hurt you. I'm Thalia. This is Luke._"

"_Monsters!_" she wailed.

"_No_," Luke promised. "_But we know about monsters. We fight them too._"

She studied them for a few seconds. She savoured Luke's gentle touch as he held her, trying to calm her down.

"_You're like me?_" she asked. She detected suspicion and a hint of hope in her own voice.

"_Yeah_. _We're…Well, it's hard to explain, but we're monster fighters. Where's your family?_"

She felt her features harden.

"_My family hates me. They don't want me. I ran away._"

Luke and Thalia glanced at each other. She could see the pain she was feeling in both their eyes.

Thalia knelt next to Luke. She put her hand on Annabeth's shoulder.

"_What's your name, kiddo?_"

"_Annabeth._"

Luke smiled at her. She didn't know why, but he made her feel warm and safe.

"_Nice name. I tell you what, Annabeth. You're pretty fierce. We could use a fighter like you._"

Annabeth could still remember the swell of emotions she felt upon receiving an offer to tag along with these two.

Her eyes widened. "_You could?_"

"_Oh, yeah,_" Luke said.

Then his eyes lit up, as though he'd gotten a really good idea. He pulled a dagger from his belt.

"_How'd you like a real monster-slaying weapon?_" Luke asked her. "_This is Celestial bronze. Works a lot better than a hammer._"

She took the dagger and studied it in awe.

"_Knives are only for the bravest and quickest fighters_," Luke told her. "_They don't have the reach or power of a sword, but they're easy to conceal and they can find weak spots in your enemy's armour. It takes a clever warrior to use a knife. I have a feeling you're pretty clever._"

She looked up from the dagger and beamed at the compliment.

She saw a smile come to both his lips and eyes. And a tinge of resolve, too.

"_I am clever!_" she said.

Thalia laughed and tousled Annabeth's hair.

"_We'd better get going, Annabeth_," Thalia said. "_We have a safe house on the James River. We'll get you some clothes and food_."

Annabeth's smile wavered.

"_You're…you're not going to take me back to my family? Promise?_"

Luke put his hand on her shoulder.

"_You're part of _our_ family now. And I promise I'm not going to fail you like our families did us. Deal?_"

"_Deal!_" she said happily, clutching the dagger that would accompany her every day into battle, even up to that moment.

Thalia smiled at her. "_Now come on. We can't stay put for long!_"

The memory dissolved, leaving her still staring at the dagger.

"Annabeth!"

The sound of someone calling her name from behind her broke her concentration. But it wasn't just the fact that the sound had startled her. Her surprise was caused primarily by the fact that she recognised the voice as that of…

"Luke."

She said his name in a complete monotone, as though her brain hadn't had enough time to process the significance of what she had just heard.

She turned around slowly, not sure what to expect.

There, in the mist, stood Luke, warm, friendly smile on his face, wearing his orange camp T-shirt, cut-offs and jeans.

Immediately, any thoughts of his betrayal or Percy evaporated.

Annabeth remembered, instead, the last thing she had told him before he died.

"_I didn't love you._"

But she had lied. She had told herself that what she felt for him was merely an infatuation, but she knew it wasn't true. She _had _loved him. And she had watched him die, after telling him she didn't.

All those years spent waiting for him to take interest in her that way. He even asked her directly about it. _And she had said no._

And now, seeing him again seemed to make her brain short out. She didn't question for a heartbeat how he was here when she had watched him die.

She flew into his arms, sobbing.

"Oh, Luke," she cried into his shirt.

"Shh," he whispered, stroking her back, much like how he'd comfort her after they'd fought something particularly scary.

He tilted her chin up, and fixed her with his blue eyes.

Her tears began to dry.

And he kissed her.

She blinked in surprise and instinctively pulled away. She was mentally recovering from the shock of seeing him again, but the kiss deactivated her brain again.

Luke looked disappointed, but she dove back into his lips, and he gladly obliged.

They kissed for about the entirety of a minute.

They finally separated, and studied each other.

This handsome young man had found her when she was but a young child, taken her to safety, treated her as part of his own family, and risked his life countless times to ensure her safety. She wasn't surprised that she had fallen – hard – for him.

And then her brain came back online, and all the terrible things he had done came rushing back. Poisoning Thalia's tree. Serving the Titans. Betraying Camp Half-Blood. Trying to kill Percy.

The name hit her like a sledgehammer.

"Percy…oh gods," she whispered.

On the one hand, she could sense that this wasn't evil Kronos-serving Luke. This was good old Luke, the Luke she had fallen in love with, the Luke that got along wonderfully with Percy. The Luke that she had spent her last few years trying to bring back.

On the other hand, _Percy_.

The image of his face flashed through her mind. She took in the sweet smile on those soft lips which she had recently gotten extremely well-acquainted with, the playfulness in his sea-green eyes, his well-defined, athletic build that had saved her life on multiple occasions…

She remembered the surreal experience of having the water form a bubble around them as they plunged into the canoe lake holding hands. And _of course_ they did the only appropriate thing then: they kissed.

She loved Percy, more than anything or anyone else in the world. She had taken Ethan's knife without hesitation. She had saved the world alongside him. And these last few weeks, spent as his girlfriend, were the best in her life. She remembered every one of the kisses she had showered on him whenever he did something stupid (and Seaweed Brain did a _lot _of stupid things).

She loved Luke, true. But the love she had for Percy was in an entirely different league.

The sight of him, the sound of him, even the scent of the ocean that so resembled his own, would be enough to make her feel giddy. A simple kiss with her boyfriend was enough to give her a glimpse of infinity. In her time with Percy, she finally understood what cheesy actors and singers meant by being "made for" someone else. Her entire being seemed to be directed towards him. She'd often find herself feeling as though he was the ultimate reason for which she lived. That he gave meaning to her life.

"Seaweed Brain," she murmured dreamily. These deeply romantic philosophical musings were enough to make her dizzy.

What she felt for Luke, she realised, _was_ just a crush. It was only this sort of complete dependence, she realised, the kind of thing that she felt for Percy, that was worthy of being called "love".

Suddenly, she felt guilt rising in her throat.

"Oh, gods…"

She had kissed Luke. That privilege of receiving the timeless and universal symbol of true love from her lips should have been reserved for Percy alone, for he alone deserved it. _But she had kissed Luke._

"No…no…no…" she muttered, a wild, vacant look filling her eyes.

She glanced at Luke, and gasped.

She didn't know why, but the more she thought about Percy, the more he started to look like him.

The panic caused by the realisation that she had betrayed her boyfriend dissolved as she puzzled over this oddity.

Was it just Percy, disguised by some illusion that was starting to break down? She held on to that hope. Perhaps she hadn't really kissed Luke. She had intended to, though, so this would only have been a minor improvement.

But before she could pursue her train of thought any further, she saw a ghostly, clearly female figure materialise out of the mist next to Luke.

Her eyes widened. She stepped back, and pointed her knife at the ghost.

"Luke…"

But as Luke turned to look at the ghost, a look of irritation flashed across his features.

"Luke's" form flickered, and he transformed into a male ghost.

Annabeth suddenly felt sick. She had made out with a _ghost_.

The two ghosts started talking. Anger flashed across the eyes of the female ghost.

Annabeth's brain kicked into action. Here she was, being faced by two spectral entities. One had tried to seduce her, and the other was glaring at her occasionally. The situation could not be good.

But before she could formulate a plan of action, the girl ghost scowled at her and waved her hand. Some of the mist flew towards Annabeth, its shape darkening and distorting as it came closer.

With a start, she realised what it was.

"SPIDER!" she shrieked in terror, dropping her knife as the creature scuttled towards her.

Of the few things that could short out Annabeth's brain, being kissed by Perseus Jackson was one of them. Spiders were another.

So she did the only thing she could.

"PERCY!"

* * *

Percy dashed past a shrieking Annabeth, then realised he'd overshot and tried to stop, squashing the mist spider in the process.

He turned around and saw Annabeth, hyperventilating in terror.

He'd never been more relieved.

"ANNABETH!" he cried, elated, as he threw his arms around her.

Being in her boyfriend's strong embrace calmed her down. She wrapped her arms around his waist and rested her head on his shoulder.

As her breathing and heart rate returned to normal, she felt his chest shudder with his sobbing.

"I…I'm so, so sorry, Annabeth. I…I let you get lost," he cried into the back of her shirt.

She felt his warm tears on her back, and tears of her own began to dapple his shirt.

"I failed you, Annabeth! I should have been by your side, but…but…"

His speech disintegrated into sobs again.

The way he was _crying_ over putting her in harm's way, even though it wasn't his fault, made her feel exceptionally terrible about what she'd done with Luke.

"I…It's alright, Percy. I…I forgive you. But…I'm sorry, Percy, I…please, forgive _me_…"

Percy sniffed. His tears had stopped upon hearing Annabeth's blessed forgiveness of his failure.

"Wha-what is it, Annabeth?"

She burst into tears.

"I kissed Luke!" she sobbed.

"I'm sorry, Percy! You're the only one I should've allowed to do that! You…I _love_ you, Percy! _You_!"

He felt jealous, bitter anger welling up inside him, but he stilled it. She was sorry. It was alright. She had faltered, just as he almost had with Calypso. She had failed, but he could forgive her.

"Don't worry," he said gently.

"I love you, Annabeth. And I know you love me. And I forgive you."

She stopped sobbing, and pulled away.

He gazed into her wide, storm-grey eyes. And in those powerful irises he saw things he'd never expected to find in them: Guilt. Regret. Shame. Contrition. Repentance.

"Really?"

He smiled faintly.

"Really."

His smile spread to her.

They were about to kiss, when an unfamiliar female voice called, "Annabeth?"

He turned, and for the first time, saw the ghosts.

He yelped in surprise.

"Annabeth Chase," the girl ghost drifted up to her.

Annabeth's eyes flared.

"Why did you throw a spider at me?"

"Uh, sorry about that," the ghost looked a little ashamed of herself.

"I wasn't too happy about you kissing my boyfriend," she gestured to the ghost that had been "Luke", "so I thought I'd scare you up a little, as payback."

Annabeth stared at the ground.

_I deserved it._

Percy may have forgiven her, but she still knew she had done something wrong.

"But anyway," the ghost smiled, sweetly and gently, "it's alright. And you're very lucky to have a boyfriend like Percy."

Before she could react, the ghost touched her on the forehead. A faint light glowed at the point of contact, and Annabeth's eyes widened.

Percy saw a fierce blush coming to her cheeks.

"Is it…does he…"

The ghost nodded.

"Yes. That's really how he feels about you."

Annabeth turned to him.

Fresh tears brimmed in her eyes, about to roll down her strawberry-red cheeks.

"Percy, that's so…"

"Percy Jackson."

The two turned to see the male ghost drifting towards them.

He smiled at Percy.

"Congratulations. Your girlfriend loves you."

With a start, Annabeth realised that he was about to reveal the entirety of _her_ thought processes during her encounter with "Luke" to _him_.

But she didn't particularly mind. He had already forgiven her for betraying him. And it was difficult to put some of her sentiments down in words. She was significantly more alarmed that these ghosts had the ability to read their minds perfectly.

As soon as the ghost touched his forehead, Percy turned redder than her.

He didn't waste any time on words, and made a beeline for Annabeth's lips.

As always, her heart seemed to explode into fireworks as they kissed.

He pulled away, smiling. And she noticed again, for the millionth time, how handsome her boyfriend was.

"So, how did infinity look like?" he smiled at her impishly.

Annabeth turned slightly redder, but she didn't seem to care.

"I'm not sure," she smiled back, with the same hint of mischief in her expression. "I think I need to take another look—"

But before they could continue, the ghosts cut them off.

"Percy and Annabeth," the girl ghost said.

"The two of you share one of the most precious gifts of humanity: true love."

"It was one that we didn't treasure, and for that, we paid dearly," she said, looking down.

"Are you the daughter of Aphrodite who lost her hairbrush?" Annabeth asked her.

"Yes. And this is my boyfriend, a son of Hecate. I _knew_ that we shared true love. It's an Aphrodite thing. But…" she trailed off.

The boy ghost sighed.

"We didn't treasure it. We got caught up in a fight over our past relationships, and while we were distracted, a monster snuck up behind me, and…well…that was that."

"But Aphrodite didn't let us pass on into the Underworld, for some reason. She gave us special powers, like the ability to read people's minds perfectly, or to generate this mist. The only way anyone could find it if they travelled with someone they believed they truly loved. And if their love failed, we would trap them here in mist."

"Mum told us we couldn't give the hairbrush to anyone who had failed our test," the girl ghost said. "And we could only pass on when we learnt what true love really meant."

"So, I guess we should thank you," said the boy ghost. "Because you two showed us things even we didn't know about true love."

"And so you two passed the test," the girl ghost said.

She lifted her hand, and plucked a glittery hairbrush out of the mist.

"Here it is," she smiled at them.

"You've earned it."

Annabeth took the hairbrush and stared at it.

"You're supposed to brush your hair with it," the boy ghost helpfully suggested.

Annabeth glared at him, then lifted the brush, but before she could touch it to her hair, Percy grabbed her wrist.

She turned to meet his eyes.

"There's no need for that. You're already perfect."

She smiled and blushed.

"Thanks, Percy."

Just then, a radiant pink light sliced through the mist.

Aphrodite materialised in front of them.

"Lady Aphrodite," Annabeth bowed.

"Your hairbrush," she handed it to the goddess.

Percy had expected her to be offended that Annabeth passed up a chance to use it, but instead she regarded her with a very strange light, older, wiser, and more mature than the goddess normally appeared.

But she made no comment. The moment was lost; she looked normal again.

"Thank you," she smiled dazzlingly at them.

She raised a hand, and the mist above them parted, to reveal several couples floating overhead.

"I'll take care of them," Aphrodite said.

With a wave of her hand, they vanished with flashes of pink light

She smiled at her daughter and her boyfriend.

"Well done, dears. You're free to go now. Have fun in Elysium!"

The ghosts waved goodbye as they descended into the ground.

And finally, Aphrodite turned back to them.

"So? Wasn't that better than the beach?"

Both of them glanced at each other. Their faces were flushed once again as they recalled their counterparts' thoughts about their relationship.

She smirked.

"I think you two need a little time for…closure."

She held out a hand, and another crystal materialised.

"This one will take you back to the beach," she said.

"Use it when you're ready," she smiled, and vanished in a flash of pink.

Annabeth looked around. With that last flash, the mist had faded. The area around them was secluded and romantic; perfect for a picnic after all.

Percy smiled mischievously at his girlfriend.

"Now where were we, Wise Girl?"

She smiled back.

"I think I was trying to take a better look at infinity, Seaweed Brain."

And so they kissed.

**A/N "Love takes up where knowledge leaves off." ~St Thomas Aquinas, anticipating Percabeth from the 13****th**** century**

**Mstr Dante Trent emailed me to remind you that reviews here may be forwarded to Mstr Jackson or his associates. And that he ****_might_**** pass you over when he goes on his next shanking spree if you've reviewed this (I'm not entirely sure he was kidding about the shanking thing).**

** His next email mentions how sending that previous one had attracted enough monsters to nearly destroy a town, and how it was the most fun he'd had in months, and that he sent this one just to make it happen again.**

** Further correspondence forthcoming. **By the way, Thomas said that he might vindicate theories about what the demigods were up to. So, send them in! (Translation: accepting story ideas)


	3. Chris Rodriguez and the Labyrinth

Chris Rodriguez and the Labyrinth

**A/N "JOHN!"**

** I growled in annoyance, casting my pen and calculator onto the table, and sprinted down the stairs. Being interrupted while doing physics was almost as annoying as being interrupted while writing. Almost.**

** "What?" I asked Kevin as I ran into the living room.**

** Thinking back, I suppose I should have detected the tone of alarm in his voice.**

** Because, through the screen door, I saw Dante and Thomas fighting a man with the head of the bull.**

** "The Minotaur," I breathed.**

** Ever since Thomas had granted me the ability to see through the Mist, I'd been seeing the mythical creatures everywhere. But they ignored me, so I deduced that they didn't know I could see them, making me feel rather guilty about invading their privacy without their knowledge.**

**Thomas put his hands on the gate, his eyes shut in intense concentration, while Dante stood behind him, duelling the Minotaur, who wielded an axe with twin blades, both of which were shaped like the letter omega.**

** Dante wielded a silver sword, which was over half a metre long. His strikes were strong and vicious, but the Minotaur's blows were sledgehammers of force. He was barely able to deflect them with his weapon.**

** Suddenly, Thomas' eyelids flew open. His eyes glowed blue.**

** "_Incantare: Murus Fortus!_"**

** His voice was no longer formal and polished, but primal, powerful and ancient.**

** With a start, I realised he was using magic, like Alabaster did in _The Demigod Diaries_.**

** My mind raced to decipher the nature of the spell.**

** "Fortus" probably meant "strong". "Murus" probably had some relationship to murals.**

** Murals…wall paintings.**

** _Strong wall_.**

**He was fortifying the gate to keep their attacker out.**

**A golden glow spread over the gate as Thomas turned to face his foe. One moment he was holding a torch in his right hand; the next, he gripped a silver medieval longsword that was over a metre long.**

**The Minotaur swung diagonally at Kevin, who ducked under the blow as Thomas trapped the axe with his sword, sinking its head into the tarmac. Thomas gripped the handle with his free hand.**

**Dante's sword shrunk into a pencil, and he tucked it into his pants pocket. Then he turned towards the gate, and began climbing it with catlike agility. The gate glowed a faint gold wherever he touched it, but did not otherwise seem to have any interaction with him.**

**But, with a grunt, the Minotaur yanked his weapon free. Its weight forced him to turn, such that his flank was exposed to Thomas.**

**But before the boy could strike, the Minotaur let go of his weapon and punched Thomas.**

**Thomas pivoted out of the way, letting the Minotaur's fist strike the gate, as Dante clambered to the ground on the other side.**

**There was a flash of golden light from where the Minotaur had struck the gate, and it stumbled back, as though repulsed from the point of contact with the gate by some mysterious force.**

**Thomas launched himself over the gate, jumping impossibly high, as the Minotaur roared and charged at it, swinging his axe.**

**Thomas turned his landing into a crouch, as the Minotaur's axe struck the gate. Through the golden light surrounding the gate, I saw the axe head fracture.**

**Thomas got up, his sword having turned back into a torch. He walked towards me, as the Minotaur's weapon exploded in a blast of dazzling light, disintegrating the creature.**

**I made a mental note to ask him about their powers at the next opportunity.**

**Dante started singing.**

**"****_Cool guys don't look at explosions…_****"**

**I opened the screen door to let my friends in, while my brother stared on in silent amazement.**

**"What…what was that thing you were fighting?" I asked. "The Minotaur?"**

**"Yes. It's followed us through several dozen countries."**

**"But didn't Percy kill the Minotaur?"**

**Thomas snorted.**

**"If only they stayed down that long."**

**"Pe-Percy?" my brother finally found his voice and stammered out.**

**It was only then that the two of them noticed that my brother had seen the whole thing.**

**Dante pulled out his shanking knife.**

**Kevin scrambled back in terror.**

**"Should I shank him?" he asked his brother.**

** "No," Thomas said firmly.**

**"Aww," Dante stowed his weapon.**

**"You never let me shank anyone," he complained.**

**Thomas pointed his torch at my brother. Most people would look silly doing this, but Thomas managed to look positively lethal.**

**"What's your name?"**

**"P-Peter," he lied.**

**The torch began to hum, and markings along its handle glowed blue, highlighting a series of Greek letters: "****αληθεια". Alpha, lambda…what was that? Kai? Then theta, epsilon, iota, if I remembered correctly, and alpha.**

**"Alktheia?" I asked. But I knew that wasn't right the moment I said it. The word sounded too clumsy with the 'k' sound in it.**

**"Aletheia," Thomas corrected, as it expanded into his sword. The word was still engraved on the blade.**

**"It's an eta, not a kai. The name means _truth_. It's a family heirloom, forged by Hephaestus himself for our ancestor, Peter of Trent."**

**He turned his attention back to my brother.**

** "So, what's your name?" Thomas asked him again.**

** "K-Kevin," he stammered out. I could see the fear in his eyes. He had no idea what it was he was facing.**

** "S-so the world of Percy Jackson is…is real?" Kevin asked Thomas.**

** Thomas smiled.**

** "Yes it is, Mstr Kevin. The boy himself is our friend. I'm Thomas Trent, by the way, and this is my brother Dante."**

** "'Sup?" Dante asked Kevin, twirling his shanking knife.**

** Thomas continued, "Anyway, your brother is helping us put together stories for Mstr Jackson. Accounts that couldn't get published."**

** Dante produced an envelope from his pants pocket.**

** "Here's the stuff for the next story," he handed it to me.**

** "You can see for yourself when it happened."**

** Thomas continued.**

** "I suppose we could make the best out of this. What are you good at, Mstr Kevin?"**

** "Um…I like drawing," he said, timidly producing a sketchbook.**

** I almost snorted in laughter. Kevin being timid was something I hadn't seen in a while.**

** Dante took it, and flipped through the pages.**

** "Hey, not bad!"**

** He handed it back to the boy.**

** "Tell you what. There's this site called deviantArt—"**

** Impatience flashed across Kevin's eyes.**

** "I _know_ what deviantArt is!" he snapped, momentarily forgetting who he was talking to.**

** Dante laughed.**

** "OK, smart guy. Go out there and make an account. You can help draw things for your brother's stories!"**

** He considered.**

** "I guess…"**

** "And between drawings, you can help me edit the stories, like how you edit my other stories," I suggested.**

** "OK," Kevin conceded.**

** Thomas turned around, and scowled. I could see a skeletal creature climbing the wall next to the front gate.**

** He turned back.**

** "In that case, welcome to the team, Mstr Kevin," he said, as he moved his hand close to my brother's face.**

** His hand glowed blue, and when he moved his hand away, Kevin started looking around as though he had woken up in an unfamiliar environment.**

** "Well, that's it, then. We'll just be off now. Can't stay put for too long," Thomas said.**

** I watched as a ring on his left hand expanded, spreading silver colour down his hand, at an unspoken command. The silver solidified into a gauntlet with "π****ι****στη" inscribed along the forearm. I recognised the symbols: pi, iota, sigma, tau, and eta from earlier.**

** "Piste?" I asked him.**

** "Piste," he nodded, "_Faith_. Also forged by Hephaestus for Peter of Trent."**

** Thomas tapped his wrist, and a retractable shield sprung forth, much like how I imagined Percy's Wristwatch Shield would deploy.**

** He and his brother walked out of the house.**

** The creature that was invading my house lunged at them, but Dante's Stygian iron blade flashed. The creature screamed and crumbled to dust.**

** They turned back as they neared the gate.**

** "Write this one well, John," he told me.**

** "And make some awesome drawings for it!" Dante told my brother.**

** They turned back to the gate.**

** "_Incantare: Magni Exsiliunt!_"**

** Light blue energy glowed around the brothers' legs, and they lunged into the air, coming down into the midst of the monsters.**

** I turned back, looked at the envelope, and then at my brother, who still looked awestruck.**

** Then I turned my gaze to the staircase that led to the second floor, and my room.**

** "Come on, Kevin," I said, walking towards it.**

** I turned back to look at him.**

** "We've got some work to do."**

The roar of the crowd of monsters filled my ears once again.

"DEATH! DEATH!"

The red-skinned giant next to Luke smiled, eager and bloodthirsty.

With a twist of his blade, Ethan Nakamura disarmed the spear-wielding giant, sending his weapon skittering across the floor.

He held the sword out, and the giant backed away, knowing full well what would happen if he so much as touched the Celestial bronze.

Antaeus extended his hand. There was no point looking. It was obviously a thumbs down.

The giant screamed in terror as Ethan lunged. The blade sliced through the monster, and it dissolved into dust.

The crowd went wild, and Antaeus bellowed with laughter, revelling in the death.

"Good, good, Son of Hermes!" he said to Luke.

I noticed his jaw clenching. Luke had never disguised his hatred of his father. In fact, it was his sales pitch to me.

"More!" he bellowed.

Luke bowed his head respectfully, but I could see he was getting tired of this.

"Bring out the _dracanae_!" he ordered.

Antaeus laughed and settled into his seat, ready for the next round.

Luke turned to me. The entertainer's mask dissolved the second his face was out of Antaeus' view.

"This fool is slowing us down," he told me, the contempt in his voice obvious.

"The string told us to come this way," I pointed out.

Luke waved my objection aside.

"There may be other ways. We cannot afford to waste any more time here."

I realised what he was saying.

"So, you want me to go back in there, and find a way around this place, without the string."

Luke nodded.

I looked around.

In truth, I was positively repulsed by the arena. It was hardly anything like what Luke had painted this adventure as while he was recruiting me.

The way he described it, it sounded like a glorious quest, worthy of Hercules, where we would be heroes fighting against the tyrannical Olympians, who had always neglected us and left us to face the dangers of being a demigod by ourselves. Many of us hadn't even been claimed.

But here we were, in an arena lined with a bajillion skulls, the stands filled with all manner of monsters, some of whom would be periodically dragged into the arena to fight demigods, prisoners, or each other for the sick amusement of some crazed psychopath. Antaeus' brutality was undisguised; he had mercilessly butchered half a dozen _dracanae_ when we first met him. He was the sort of thing I'd imagined I'd fight. But instead, we satiated his sick desire with senseless violence and killing.

But on the other hand, the Labyrinth…scared me. Even when I was travelling with a legion of monsters and fellow demigods, I could sense its ancient, oppressive power. And time and again, I was reminded of how utterly lost I would be without the string.

But disgust welled in the pit of my stomach as I saw Ethan disarm the _dracanae_ with ease. They had followed Luke all the way from the ship, but he remained emotionless as Antaeus ordered their deaths.

Luke, too, had changed in his time since Camp Half-Blood. He had become colder and crueller. More brutal and unfeeling.

I watched as Ethan put the _dracanae_ to death. And it was then that I decided that I would not stand idly by as another perverse sacrifice was offered up for Antaeus.

"Alright," I told Luke, picking up my spear.

"Take this," he handed me a string.

I examined it. It was glowing silver.

"When you come close to the path that Ariadne's string is telling us to follow, this string will start glowing silver."

I nodded, and tied it into a knot around my finger.

The bloodthirsty cries of the crowd echoed behind me as I walked out of the arena.

I both hoped and feared that this was the last time I'd ever hear it.

* * *

I trudged through the tunnels as I tugged the string along in my hand. The patchwork of tunnels was so confusing it scared me. I found myself constantly switching between looking back to make sure I was still threading the string and looking at my finger to check if I'd found a way to Ariadne's path.

Of course Luke knew that simply sending me into the Labyrinth would have been no good. I'd probably never have found my way back to him, even if I did find a way around the arena. So he gave me a normal string to unwind as I looked around.

The tunnels were so chaotic I lost track of time. I couldn't remember how many times I'd stopped to wonder about how long the string had to be.

But suddenly, as I was going through a rather modern-looking section that could have passed as the inside of a sewer, I heard a girl's voice.

"Chris?"

My heart nearly stopped. I recognised that voice.

"Mary."

Mary Rodriguez. My sister.

In the Labyrinth.

As I ran towards the place I heard her voice coming from, I shouted, "Mary! I'm here! Chris, your big brother!" My mind went back to when I was growing up.

Well, soon after Hermes and my mum made me, he told her who he was and then ran off to do his godly business. We never saw him again. Mum always said she regretted giving in to him (even if she never told me who he was). But she told me she would still love and cherish me as her own, even if she wished she could've resisted Hermes.

Things took a turn for the better a few years afterwards. A fairly well-to-do mortal man fell in love with my Mum, and when she told him about Hermes (without mentioning he was a god, of course), the man was filled with nothing but compassion and pity. He married my Mum, and treated me like a son. So I suppose I was better off than some other demigods that way.

But all that changed after the accident.

We were walking down a street when a huge black dog with glowing red eyes came down the road, his teeth clamped around the arm of a teenager. The teenager was holding a bronze spear, and tried to use it to stab the dog, but the dog's jaws were clamped too tightly around his arm.

My stepdad tried to help, but the dog yanked the guy's arm right out of its socket (I don't want to describe it) and mauled him to death before my stepdad could reach him. And when he did reach the dog, it did the same thing to him, before charging straight at me.

Mum managed to distract it, and I went for the spear. But the dog reached her before I reached it.

I killed the creature, but my Mum was already too wounded to survive. She lasted long enough to tell me about Hermes (without specifying; he had told her he was a god, but not which one, exactly), and to tell me to go to camp.

I didn't know what to do about Mary, but I knew that the only person who I could be sure would really care about her was me. I didn't know what would happen if I showed up at the camp with a mortal, but I decided we could deal with that later, if we were lucky enough to make it to that stage.

It was hard and painful. We crossed the country on foot, because I didn't know how a taxi driver would react to the two of us travelling alone. I kept the spear, and I had to use it a lot. But all through the journey, my first priority was to take care of my little sister. So when I woke up one day to find her gone, I was…well, "heartbroken" doesn't cover it.

I never found out what happened to her. But now, hearing her voice filled me with hope and determination. I'd failed to protect her once before. I was not going to let it happen again. I wasn't sure how she'd gotten into the Labyrinth, but now I was determined to get her out safely.

I holstered my torch and pulled out my spear, which I kept slung on my back, as I closed in on the source of the voice. The faint glow of the Celestial bronze was much weaker than the torch, but I had a feeling that I'd need to vaporise some monsters soon.

"I'm coming, Mary!"

I skidded around a corner. Her voice had been coming from somewhere down this corridor.

"Help! Chris!"

"Mary?" I waved my spear around. Its glow could barely pierce a metre into the darkness.

"Help!"

I hastily tied the string around my wrist, and pulled out my torch. I swept the corridor, its strong light cutting through the inky darkness.

The light swept past the figure of a girl cowering in fear against a wall.

My eyes widened.

"Mary!" I dashed towards her.

She turned to look at me.

"Chris! Help! It-it's here!" she screamed and pointed.

I reached out my hand to hug and comfort her, but she sprinted into the darkness.

I briefly turned to see what she had been pointing at.

Something bellowed from the darkness.

My gut clenched.

_The Minotaur_.

That new kid had killed the creature a couple of years back. What was his name? Percy? Yeah. Stupid son of Poseidon. Apparently he couldn't keep the monster down.

I bit my lip as the oddly comical thought that he was Antaeus' half-brother came to mind, then banished the ADHD-induced musing and ran after my sister.

"Mary! Stop! I'm here to protect you! I won't let you get hurt again!" I shouted after her.

I could still hear her footsteps ahead of me. She was still running.

The Minotaur bellowed. I could hear _his_ footsteps. And they were getting louder.

"Mary! Wait up!"

We ran around for about five minutes, with Mary always ahead, just out of sight, and the Minotaur bellowing behind us.

Finally, I rounded a corner, and spotlighted my sister with the torch.

I was panting heavily. The full battle armour seemed a bad choice in retrospect.

"Mary…where…"

She noticed the string around my wrist.

"Chris! It's following you!"

The Minotaur bellowed for emphasis. Its footsteps were growing louder.

She pointed at the string.

"It can track you with the string! We'll never lose it!"

I was exhausted from the running, so anything that would get the stupid beast off our tails would help. She had a point; Luke's monsters had often complained that they couldn't even smell demigods five metres away in the Labyrinth, so the Minotaur's only clue to our location would have been the string. I thought for a second about how we were supposed to get back, but then I realised it wouldn't matter if we had a way back or not if the Minotaur killed us.

I sliced the string with the tip of my spear.

"Let's go!" she said, turning around.

But she paused in mid-turn.

"BEHIND YOU!" she screamed.

I whirled around.

The Minotaur was barrelling straight at me.

I wasn't sure if I could defeat it in close-quarters combat with a spear, especially in this exhausted state. I considered throwing it, but that would disarm me, and I still had to find a way out of the Labyrinth.

Left with no choice, I decided to throw my torch to distract the creature. All that I needed was a little bit of space, and then we'd lose the thing forever. After all, it couldn't track us anymore.

The creature dove as the torch sailed through the air, passing through the spot where his head used to be.

But I didn't stand around admiring my shot. As soon as I'd chucked the torch, I turned around, and tore down the corridor after my sister.

* * *

On the bright side, I had found my sister, whom I'd feared dead for the past few years. We were no longer being pursued by a murderous (literally) bull-headed monster. And I still had my trusty spear.

On the other hand, the Labyrinth was completely dark, and I had lost my torch. I couldn't see more than a metre ahead, and even then the illumination was so faint I'd have to stare at a spot for a few seconds before my brain could begin to decipher what it was. We couldn't see where we were going. The only upside was that I could easily check the string-ring. If it glowed, it'd be hard to miss to in the darkness. But it hadn't glowed since I left the arena.

And even worse, we had no idea how to go back. We were hopelessly lost, and we had no way out.

Still, I didn't say anything to Mary. It had been an impossible choice: we couldn't run forever, so eventually we would either have to get lost in the Labyrinth, or get mauled to death by the Minotaur, neither of which sounded particularly appealing.

I had no idea how long we'd been walking for before I realised I hadn't said a single word to Mary since I'd caught up with her after fleeing the Minotaur.

"So…Mary…what happened? Why weren't you there that day?"

I didn't say "run away". I didn't want to accuse her of anything. I'd already failed her, and I didn't want to hurt her anymore.

She stopped. Her eyes shone in the bronze light of my spear. I could see the pain and sadness in them.

"Please," she said. Her sorrow flowed into her voice.

I nodded, and reached out to give her a comforting hug.

But she withdrew.

"Please, Chris," she said again, the hurt in her voice crystal-clear.

I frowned, but I decided to let it drop. I would never do anything to hurt my sister, even if her not wanting to hug me was rather odd, given how often she'd cried herself to sleep in my arms while we were travelling to Camp Half-Blood.

We walked on in silence for a bit, before I tried to strike up a conversation again.

"Do you know the way out?"

She stopped, and turned around slowly.

"What?"

"Do you know the way out?" I repeated the question.

"I was following you!"

Her eyes flared with anger and accusation.

My heart sank. We were now even more lost.

"So…we have no way out?"

Her anger had not abated.

"Chris! _You_ were supposed to have a way out! You're the big brother! You're supposed to be leading me out of the maze!"

"The way out was to follow the string!" I protested.

"So why did you cut it?"

"The Minotaur would've chased us until we were dead!"

It was so tempting to raise my voice. But this was my little sister.

She sat down heavily, and sobbed gently.

"Now we're lost, Chris. There's no way out."

I leaned down next to her, being careful not to touch her.

"I'll get us out of this," I told her. "I'll find a way."

She looked into my eyes. Seeing hers clouded with tears made her look even more fragile.

"Promise?"

"I promise."

She slowly got to her feet.

And we walked on into the darkness.

* * *

The funny thing was, the darkness seemed to go on forever. The passages never seemed to open up into inhabited areas, or to pass into modern regions. We walked and we walked until my feet were sore and my shoulders slumped under the weight of my armour, with only the light of my spear for illumination. I examined the walls as we went. The mark of Daedalus was nowhere to be found.

The hours slipped by. We had no way to keep track of time. I wondered where Luke thought I was right now. Did he even care? Or did he write me off as dead and lost? All of a sudden, I started to wonder who really cared more about me, Luke or my father.

It was when we were inspecting the billionth wall for the mark of Daedalus that Mary finally had enough.

She stamped her foot.

"Where is it?" she whined in frustration.

I don't know why, but it was at that moment that I snapped. I'd been trying to delude her, and myself, into thinking that there was some hope for escape, but in reality I knew, somewhere at the back of my mind, that we were lost the second I cut the string. And after tramping through the Labyrinth for hours, searching wall after wall for the supposedly common mark, I couldn't take it any longer.

"There's no way out, Mary! No way out!" I screamed, startling her.

"I cut the string! Now there's no way out!"

She backed away, tears welling in her eyes.

But I was too busy venting my frustration and exhaustion to care.

"We're lost! Forever! We'll be stuck down here until we DIE!" I screamed.

Mary started sobbing.

I realised what I'd done.

"Mary, no, wait, please…" I said, softening my tone.

But she turned around and fled into the darkness.

"MARY!" I screamed, running after her.

Her sobs echoed down the corridor.

"Mary! Stop! I'm sorry!"

I felt terrible inside. The maze was taking its toll on me. I couldn't imagine how much worse it had to be for her. _And I had screamed at her._

"Mary! Please! Come back!"

As I ran towards the corner, I realised there was some light around it.

But I was too concerned with Mary to be joyful or grateful.

"Mary!"

She was standing at the end of the corridor in a large circular room with a dirt floor. Torches blazed bright within, illuminating it and casting light down the corridor.

I ran towards her, shielding my eyes from the light. They still hadn't adjusted after spending so long in the darkness of the Labyrinth.

"Mary, please!"

To my great surprise, she did not run.

But I ran towards her expecting that she would, so before I could stop, I ploughed straight through her…

…and she dissolved into mist.

I reached out, trying to grab the wisps of white. But it was no good.

"Mary?" I gasped in shock.

"Chris."

I looked up. Then I realised what this place was.

Sitting on a seat of honour, above the green banner of Poseidon, next to a red-skinned giant tattooed with blue wave patterns, was Luke.

"Luke, what…"

Luke sneered coldly at me, as the crowds of monsters in the skull-encrusted stands looked on in expectant silence.

"Clearly, I made a mistake with admitting you into the army of Kronos. You will have to prove yourself, just like the rest."

The monsters raised a bloodthirsty cheer. It was only now that I truly appreciated what it felt like to hear that familiar sound while being in the arena.

Even now, something bugged me at the back of my mind. Something wasn't right. This all just seemed too discontinuous, too disjointed, too…insane.

"Lord Antaeus," Luke said to the giant next to him.

The blood drained from my face as I realised what Luke was about to do.

"I present to you a tribute to Lord Poseidon: Chris Rodriguez, Son of Hermes!"

Antaeus grinned savagely.

"Good, good," he got up.

"I tell you what, Master Luke," he said, "I think I shall crush this one myself."

I swear I almost wet myself. I had seen how the earth was able to rise up to his wounds and heal them when he attacked our _dracanae_ and they wounded him. I remembered thinking a bit about how terrible it must be to have to fight a foe like that.

And now I was about to find out.

"Very good, my Lord," Luke bowed.

He smiled coldly, both at me and at Antaeus. And it was then that his true colours finally showed. He was even worse than the Olympians he was trying to bring down. I'd never been a friend to him. Just a playing piece.

Anger simmered within me. I had no idea why he was doing this. But I swore that if Antaeus died by my hand today, Luke would be next. The fact that he had created an illusion of Mary to bait me made me even more determined to run him through with my spear.

Antaeus jumped down from his seat into the arena.

"Your skull shall join these, as an offering to Lord Poseidon!"

The thousands of skulls suddenly looked a lot more menacing.

I flourished my spear to give myself confidence.

"Come on, you coward! Stop talking and fight!"

His eyes flared.

_Good_, I thought.

_An angry opponent is a careless opponent. And carelessness costs victories._

Antaeus roared and charged. I sidestepped and slashed his calf with the tip of my spear.

It was a nightmare coming true. The ground rose to meet the source of the gout of sand spewing from Antaeus. And when it fell away, he had been healed.

Antaeus whirled around, still grinning.

"Good, Son of Hermes! The more you struggle, the more fun this is!"

And after that, everything went blurry. I fought until my arms grew heavy as lead, wounding him again, and again, and again, as the crowd cheered and Luke watched on, emotionless. But the earth kept healing him.

Finally, I fell to my knees, exhausted. My spear clattered to the ground. I couldn't even hold it. My armour weighed on me like the sky on Atlas.

I looked up, as Antaeus' wave-patterned fist came down on my fatigued form.

The next thing I remember was being in a cave, lying, face down, on the ground. I was hungry, I was thirsty, and I was tired. I looked up, and there, finally, on the wall in front of me, was the mark of Daedalus. The blasted symbol that should have been everywhere in the maze, but only chose to show itself here.

I dragged myself to it, reached out, and touched the symbol.

It glowed blue, and the rocks in front of me slid open.

I staggered out into the sun. The golden glare of the sand blinded me, but it was so good to be free from the Labyrinth that I didn't care.

Then everything started breaking down again. I remembered the sand. The heat. The pain. Then I remembered Clarisse. I'd never thought she could be so gentle or tender. But she brought me to her house, and took care of me. Then I remembered Chiron coming by. And then I remembered going back to camp. I remembered seeing her most days. But I can't remember what I did, or what I was thinking. I suppose everything that happened from my finding of Mary onwards culminated to shatter my mind. And that was all I remembered before Mr. D came back and healed me.

Well, I suppose that's it for now. Clarisse…well, we had been friends before, but after how sweet she was to me, I couldn't help falling in love with her, despite how mean and tough she normally was. Which was a good thing, since it turned out she'd had a crush on me for a while too. It was great to hear that Luke's invasion force was defeated, and I can't say how relieved I was to learn that the Labyrinth was destroyed. But Luke was now hosting Kronos. I knew this wouldn't be the last time he tried to destroy the Camp and topple the Olympians. But I also knew that, next summer, I'd be standing with Clarisse, and Percy, and the rest of my real friends, and we'd be fighting Luke's monsters, just like real heroes should.

**A/N My brother, "Kevin", has edited this story and created a deviantArt account: ~DanteLuxsignifer. As of the time of writing, he has not uploaded or even completed any illustrations. But stay tuned; he should get down to it soon.**

** A note: my synthesis here may have been of somewhat lower quality, because this is approximately the first time I have ever written in the first person outside of school, and because this story doesn't focus on romantic, intellectual, or combat-related matters, which are the three topics in which I consider myself reasonably proficient at writing on.**

** Also, Dante's offer of exemption from shanking in exchange for reviews still stands, as does Thomas' offer of theory vindication (Translation: Please review, and any story ideas would be welcome).**


	4. Percy Jackson and the Tar Monsters

Percy Jackson and the Tar Monsters

**A/N I leaned back, feeling the stretch in my abdomen. Ah, yes, the abdomen. I would always get a stitch in those blasted muscles if I forgot to stretch.**

** I stretched for a bit more, then bent over to tie one of my laces that had come undone.**

** As I jogged out of the gates of my house, I glanced at the mark in the tarmac made by the Minotaur's axe. I smiled slightly as I remembered the last encounter with the psychopathic Dante and his refined brother Thomas, with the "phony accent," Dante had called it.**

** I mused briefly about when I would see them again. I had shot them an email with some of the reviews that I thought they should pass on to Percy. But there had been no reply since.**

** I put those thoughts out of my mind, and turned instead to the task at hand: running. I had recently discovered that it was, in fact, possible for me to run seven rounds around the school field without stopping. And this was an ability I was not keen to lose. With the exams past for now, I decided I could afford to take a morning jog on a weekend. And also, I'd gotten used to seeing without the Mist. It was fun to look around and check if I could remember the myths associated with the magical creatures I saw.**

** To the mall and back, I decided. The whole circuit was a full klick longer than the seven rounds around the field, but it was a cool and comfortable morning, I decided that I would take a break at the mall, and I swear the school field is cursed. After a round around it my lungs stop working and my legs turn to lead.**

** My thoughts turned to other matters as my feet tapped lightly on the pavement, carrying me forward, and my breathing settled into a comfortable pattern. Though I tried to avoid thinking about the world that Dante and Thomas had dragged me into, I couldn't help musing on both the philosophical and scientific problems this presented me with. How the physics, for one, did demigod powers work? Commanding spirits certainly wasn't the answer; I doubt there was one associated with the water in my toilet Thomas had used to demonstrate. So what other mechanism could give rise to this sort of phenomenon?**

** And what, precisely, was the relationship between the scientific worldview and the magical or mythical view of things? I remembered that the common threads across all myths and religions were the result of human nature's reaction to the sacred in reality. This brought to mind the whole thing about the relationship between Greek/Roman duality and the Egyptian gods, which in turn caused me to consider the ontological nature of these beings that called themselves gods. As Mr Riordan himself acknowledged, these supremely powerful creatures were fundamentally different from the God of classical theism, in a similar way to how the abstract triangles you deal with in geometry class differed from triangles you encountered in everyday life, like pizzas. So then what were they? What was their relationship to these aspects of reality and human nature that they reflected?**

** The thoughts buzzed about in my head, as my body automatically navigated its way through the familiar neighbourhood. I made mental notes to retrieve and re-read certain documents as soon as I got back to my computer. Perhaps I should pen down my thoughts to organise them.**

** When the internal discussion had died down enough for me to take notice of my surroundings, I found myself running past the field next to the mall. I'd had bad experiences with that particular field. I lost a shoe to a patch of mud there once. It was a good shoe.**

** But before I could somehow link the lost shoe to the world of Olympians and demigods (as my mind would probably have done if left idle), I skidded to a stop and heard, for the first time in real life, what I guessed was an explosion. Given that it was accompanied the brilliant flash on the field and the tongues of flame in its aftermath, I'd say it was a good guess.**

** But I'd also seen a shape get launched into the air, right at me.**

** Two shapes, I realised, as they neared the end of their trajectory, the identity of which was confirmed by one of them shouting "_Incantare: Bulla Levare!_"**

** I smiled as the two drifted to the ground in a glowing blue bubble.**

** Dante and Thomas Trent.**

** "Guys!" I laughed.**

** "How come you can use magic? It's not fair!" Dante complained to his brother.**

** Thomas looked offended. "Your hand functions as a flamethrower, and you can summon the dead, and you can unleash enormous explosions," he gestured to the field. Smoke was rising from the distant end.**

**"And you _can_ use magic."**

** I reminded myself to ask them about their powers as soon as they were done.**

**"If you'd stopped playing with your pencil all day and learnt some spells instead, you'd be able to do things like that too!"**

**Before Dante could retort, something roared from across the field.**

**"Great," he grumbled. "It survived."**

**I got the feeling that this probably wasn't be the best time for questions. Hence my investigation into their abilities was frustrated once more.**

**Thomas produced a sheaf of papers, and passed it to me.**

**"It should be fairly obvious what you have to do. We…"**

**He glanced at something in the distance on the field.**

**"…_really_ don't have time to explain."**

**I carefully folded them and tucked them in my pocket.**

**"Oh yeah," Dante said, twirling his shanking knife.**

**I could sense the mortals around us recoil in fear. Even if they couldn't see the blade in its full nightmarish glory, the malevolence of the Stygian iron was literally repulsive. I'd learnt to control my reaction, though, so I only flinched a little and looked away.**

**"We got your email. But the monsters started busting up the internet café before we could reply. Anyway, Percy says to Aria Taylor and Riri Goei that they'd found Silena's diary in a compartment of one of the Ares chariots. He'll clean it up and pass it to us the next time we come around."**

**"You won't believe the amount of filth in their chariots," Thomas muttered.**

**"And he also says hi back to Riri Goei," Dante continued.**

**Then, the thing in the field roared again. It was louder this time. Closer. More menacing.**

**Thomas turned to me and said, "You'd better get going."**

**I nodded as he deployed the telescopic shield on his gauntlet, Piste.**

**The creature roared again, as if to hurry me along, and the two brothers charged into the field.**

**I turned around, and jogged back, skin tingling in the anticipation of a new story.**

Percy had to admit, as Frank carried them into Salt Lake City, the view was pretty romantic. The city, which fitted snugly against the curve of a mountain range, was enshrouded in afternoon shadows, giving it a somewhat ethereal blue-purple glow. But the occasional realisation that the dragon he was riding on was actually his friend Frank freaked him out too much for him to savour the view with Annabeth.

The city itself looked vast and sprawling, extending beyond Percy's field of vision to the left and right, but this was probably caused by the fact that the mountain range it was built against was rather long, rather than the city actually being large. Percy spotted a few islands of high-rise white or grey buildings amidst the sea of trees infested with low-rise houses, or low-rise houses infested with trees, that covered most of the area of the city. The dusk light made the parts closer to the mountain appear even more distant and a little mystical.

Frank touched down in a large field, and Percy and Annabeth jumped off his back as he transformed back into a human.

Annabeth and Percy walked up to the edge of the field. She looked around, as Frank ran to join them. He was panting heavily from the effort of the transformation.

He slowed down as he approached, and stopped walking a distance away. He wiped the sweat off his forehead as he observed them.

He couldn't help but feel a twinge of jealousy as he watched the two of them. Percy's love for Annabeth had been so strong and genuine that it was the only thing he'd remembered when Hazel and he found him. And even now, they acted like a perfect couple. The chemistry between them was glaringly obvious. Even the way they stood next to each other betrayed their relationship. It was clear from Percy's stance that he was protecting Annabeth, and from her posture, it was easy to tell that she was acknowledging and cooperating with his efforts.

Frank could see that all of this came naturally to them. They didn't even have to put in any effort to radiate that sense of dependency and unity, because that's just how in love they were. Every action of one complemented the actions of the other perfectly, as though they really did live for and depend completely on each other. As though they were really meant to be together.

But Frank wasn't so lucky. His own girlfriend Hazel had instead chosen to run off with some Leo character, whom she also thought was her boyfriend Sammy from her first life, leaving him to act as a demigod taxi for the perfect couple, whose every movement highlighted how inadequate his own relationship with her was.

"We need to find a hardware store or something. There'll probably be some tar there," Annabeth remarked, bringing him back to reality.

Percy frowned. "The town's down there," he gestured towards a block of buildings, "but won't three dangerous-looking out-of-town teenagers asking around for a hardware store attract attention? I mean, they might think we're getting stuff to break into someone's house or something."

Annabeth was about to reply, but suddenly a horrible, hissing, crackling sound filled the air around them.

Percy's subtly protective stance became more overt. He extended his left arm in front of Annabeth, shielding her from whatever threat they might be up against, as he readied Riptide in his right hand.

Annabeth drew her dagger, but kept her arms close to her body, accepting Percy's sweet gesture. She looked worried about the hissing, but Frank could see the twinkle in her eyes that she got whenever Percy earned a kiss from her. He ran up to them, drew his bow and nocked an arrow. The three of them stood back to back, scanning the environment for any sign of movement.

The grass around them seemed to be swaying, but there was no wind.

And it was then that they realised what it was.

Gaia was laughing.

The noise rose in a cacophonous crescendo, reverberating through the ground, whispering in the trees, humming in the grass.

The three of them backed further into each other. Annabeth slipped the fingers of her free hand between those of the hand Percy was protecting her with, and squeezed it tight.

He squeezed back.

Frank felt a little bit of himself die, but he supressed his thoughts about his relationship issues. They had more pressing matters to attend to.

The noise gave way to words, which sounded no less terrible, but were even more chilling.

_You cannot escape the earth,_ Gaia murmured.

Annabeth squeezed Percy's hand until her knuckles turned white.

_I am everywhere. You will try to run, little demigods, but the earth shall swallow you. There is no escape from the power of Gaia._

Then she began laughing again, even more viciously than before.

Annabeth bit down on her lip. This was almost as unnerving as dealing with spiders.

"Come out, Gaia!" Percy shouted, extending his sword at the grass, which swayed at Gaia's command. He was putting up a brave front, but his fear was evident in the trembling of his blade. In hindsight, he must have looked silly, getting scared by a field of grass and threatening said field with a sword. But in that moment, his actions were perfectly understandable.

Gaia laughter intensified, as though Percy's challenge were so pathetic it was laughable.

Just when Frank thought he was about to snap and open fire on the field, Gaia's laughter died.

Their surroundings returned to their original state. The grass stopped rustling.

The demigods slowly lowered their weapons.

"What was that!?" Frank asked.

Percy's expression hardened.

"Gaia's probably got some surprise planned for us."

He re-capped Riptide.

"We need to get this done as quickly as possible. The sooner we get out of this place, the better."

Percy starting heading towards the town, and Annabeth and Frank followed behind him.

* * *

The tension dissolved quickly. It took little over a minute for Annabeth to recover sufficiently to start commenting on the architecture of the houses they passed by on the way to town. Percy did his best to pay attention, but, as much as he loved Annabeth, he had no interest in the topic.

"And then – Percy, you're not paying attention," Annabeth stopped and put her hands on her hips, glaring sternly at Percy.

"I…uh…"

His face reddened as he turned to look at his girlfriend. He pouted and looked sheepish.

Annabeth held out for the whole of two seconds before breaking into a smile.

"Oh, I can't stay mad at you, Percy."

He smiled too.

"Don't ever stop talking about architecture. It's the best way to get you to talk, and I love the sound of your voice."

Her smile widened, and she stood somewhat on her tiptoes to kiss him.

"Don't ever stop being so sweet, Percy."

It pained Frank to see them treat each other so lovingly. He could easily picture them as an old married couple.

_Why can't Hazel and I be more like them?_

But the romantic interlude was interrupted by the sound of screaming coming from a road by one of the houses.

The demigods drew their weapons as they ran over.

"Would that be Gaia's surprise?" Frank asked.

"Probably," Annabeth agreed.

They were behind the house in question, so it was only when they rounded the corner and came up in front that they saw what it was that was causing the commotion.

A cargo truck lay on the ground, flipped on its side. There was a huge crack in the side, and a black ooze poured out.

But that wasn't the cause of the consternation. Rather, it was the fact that the black sticky stuff was rising from the ground, forming gloopy humanoid creatures, a few dozen of which were already running around attacking mortals in the vicinity.

A boy ran up to one of the monsters, toting a plastic five-gallon bucket of water. The weight of the bucket destabilised his gait. He threw the water (and the bucket) at the creature, but freaked out and fled when he saw it had no effect.

"Great," Annabeth muttered. "That's roofing tar, all right, but it looks like it's not going to come peacefully. Gaia has a sense of humour."

Frank looked puzzled.

"But what are these creatures? I mean, there were no tar monsters in the myths. Did the Greeks or Romans even know about tar?"

As if in response to his question, the next tar monster to be formed wheeled about to face him.

"Hello, Frank Zhang," it squelch-growled.

The fact that the creature was made of tar distorted its speech somewhat, but the colour drained from Frank's face as he realised who it was he was facing.

"Alcyoneus," Frank said, dread in his voice.

Percy couldn't help but crack a smile.

"Golden Boy?"

The tar monster glared at him, and the others turned to face them.

"You are fortunate that my last defeat left me too weak to return fully. But that will not save you," the tar monster said, directing its gaze at Frank once more.

Annabeth's eyes widened as she matched Percy's account of the battle with Alcyoneus with her own scientific knowledge.

"Roofing tar is made from coal tar and petroleum byproducts. Alcyoneus can possess crude oil, as you saw when you fought him in Alaska. And that's what he's doing now," she told Frank.

The tar monster turned its gaze to her.

"Clever, Annabeth Chase. Yes, Mother Gaia has used her strength to free slivers of my essence from Tartarus. Not enough to fully awaken me, but enough for me to assume this form. And enough for me to kill you!"

Annabeth spared a second's thought to muse on how a monster made of tar was supposed to kill her, but this proved to be a fatal distraction. The tar monster lunged at her with surprising alacrity, causing her to scream in terror and back away, but fortunately the combat instincts of the two boys kicked in quickly enough.

Frank loosed an arrow, which got stuck in the sticky black gloop without doing much else to hurt the monster, while Percy jumped in front of Annabeth, blocking the monster's fist of black ooze with his torso.

The blow broke the Alcyoneus' control over the tar, sending it flying everywhere. A glob of it got stuck in Annabeth's hair, and Percy's shirt was covered in the substance.

Percy glanced at Annabeth.

"I will never, ever let you get hurt. Even if it kills me," he promised her. His voice was soft, but his tone made it clear that he would go through Tartarus to keep that oath.

The monster swung its other arm, and Annabeth saw the tar harden into a crude triangular blade.

"Percy, look out!" she cried.

Percy swung Riptide, shattering the tar and sending shrapnel everywhere. Then he drove it into the monster, and it collapsed into a steaming, inanimate pile on the ground. Percy could feel the heat radiating off it. Apparently exorcising the essence of giants from substances they had possessed was an exothermic reaction.

Percy looked around. The tar was still spilling out of the truck and forming monsters, and those already extant began plodding towards the three of them.

"Try the Imperial gold arrows. Get the ones behind us," he told Frank.

Frank loosed one, and a distant tar monster crumpled.

Percy and Annabeth readied their blades, facing the tar monsters coming from the truck.

The two of them fought as a perfect team. They had battled back to back for so many years now, it came naturally to them. They knew each other's combat styles inside out, and complemented each other's moves flawlessly.

Frank bit his lip in envy as he watched them mow down the tar monsters. Even in combat, their relationship was evident. How they had each other's backs. How they matched each other precisely. How they acted as one.

_While Hazel abandons me as a mission partner for __Repair Boy_.

This momentary distraction cost him. A tar monster nearly managed to run him through on a spike of solid tar, but he dodged in time. Barely. He swung his bow, smashing the monster's weapon, but the monster slapped him with its other arm (which fortunately didn't have enough time to solidify), leaving a big smear of tar down his face.

Frank pulled out an Imperial gold arrow and stabbed the monster with it, then wheeled to strike another that tried to get the drop on him, reducing both to steaming piles of tar. He decided to defer his angst over his deficient relationship with Hazel to a time when he wasn't fighting for his life.

Percy and Annabeth stood back to back, fighting off the tar monsters that had surrounded them.

"Plan?" Percy asked Annabeth, cutting down another tar monster.

Annabeth dipped under the swing of one, closed, and finished it off with her knife.

"We need to get the tar. That's the only thing keeping us here, and we're the only thing keeping Alcyoneus here," she said.

She turned aside as another monster tried to strike her and stabbed its exposed back.

"That boy dropped a convenient bucket over there," she gestured, dodging a punch from another monster.

Percy whirled around and slashed apart the creature that tried to hit his girlfriend.

"You get the bucket and scoop the tar, I fight off the monsters?"

Annabeth nodded.

Percy turned to Frank.

"Cover our backs!"

"OK!"

Frank killed another monster, then ran to join Percy and Annabeth as they advanced on the bucket.

He momentarily wondered what this must have looked like to the mortals.

Percy ran the monster standing over the bucket through with his sword, and Annabeth picked up the bucket, allowing said monster to collapse conveniently into a steaming pile of tar inside it.

"This is such a waste of arrows," Frank grumbled.

Annabeth got to work scooping the tar from the fallen monsters around them, while being careful to avoid touching the substance. She could already feel the heat of the tar from a distance. Percy continued slicing through the tar monsters that attempted to assault his girlfriend, while Frank took the more distant ones down.

Percy fought with steely determination. Frank and Annabeth could see he was dedicated to keeping his promise and protecting her at all costs. Annabeth found it touching. Frank found it painful.

Finally, Annabeth was done. She stood up, hefting the bucket. It was somewhat heavy.

Percy stabbed the monster behind her, and took the bucket from Annabeth.

"Frank! Let's go!"

Frank shot down another tar monster, then looked balefully at all the Imperial gold arrows lying everywhere.

_If only Hazel were here…_

Annabeth read his expression.

"Percy, we need to pick up the arrows. Frank has a limited supply, you know."

He looked at the tar monsters _still_ spilling out from the truck. Seriously, who needed this much tar?

He sighed.

"Alright. Uh, Frank, could you turn into a horse or something? To help us pick the arrows more quickly."

Frank nodded, focusing on his memories of riding Arion with Hazel. He winced as he recalled how she was probably galloping around with Leo/Sammy on it right now, but banished the thought so it didn't get in the way of the transformation.

He felt himself morphing into a more powerful, quadrupedal form. His back was now parallel to the ground. His face extended. His muscles grew. And then he whinnied.

"I'll keep the monsters away with Riptide," Percy said.

He casually swung his blade, taking out another monster sneaking up behind him.

"And Annabeth can pick the arrows."

Annabeth nodded.

Percy hopped onto Frank's back, and Annabeth joined him, wrapping her arms around his waist.

"Giddyup!" Percy laughed.

Frank snorted something very rude in Horse, and began galloping around. Annabeth would release her arms from Percy to pick up an arrow whenever they passed one by, and Percy struck down any tar monsters that came close.

They were finished in little over a minute.

"Alright, that's the last of them," Annabeth said.

Frank morphed into a dragon again as Percy noticed that the seemingly endless supply of tar had been exhausted.

Only one tar monster remained.

It looked up at Frank, but seemed unimpressed.

"You may have survived this round," it hissed, "but Mother Gaia will avenge me. Just wait."

Percy threw Riptide straight at the monster, like a spear, and it collapsed.

"Good riddance," Annabeth muttered.

Frank paused, as though waiting for Percy to pick up his weapon.

"It's alright," Percy said. "It'll come back to me. Now let's go!"

Frank spread his wings and took to the sky.

Annabeth smiled at Percy as they flew towards the shimmering lake.

"Nicely done, Seaweed Brain," she kissed him.

He smiled back.

"There's nothing in the world that can stop the two of us," he said.

Frank's back was quite wide, so she had enough space to lay her head down in Percy's lap and look up into his eyes. She had to be careful not to get any of the tar from his shirt on her, but the intimacy was worth it.

As Percy directed his gaze downwards at his girlfriend, resting contentedly in his lap with her eyes half-closed, he felt another smile tugging at his lips. He gently stroked her cheek, savouring the silky softness of her skin, as the contact brought colour to her face and sent a shiver down her spine.

He admired his girlfriend for a few seconds more, and then tried to pull some of the sticky black tar out of her hair.

"Never," he said tenderly, repeating the promise he had made immediately after the tar had gotten stuck there.

She smiled.

"I love you, Percy," she said softly.

He gave up on removing the tar, and instead bent down to plant a kiss on her lips.

"I know."

They were so easy together, it made Frank's heart ache.

**A/N Piper isn't the only one who feels inadequate next to Percy and Annabeth.**

** An update on the illustrations front: "Kevin" has decided not to post anything yet because of, in his own words, "stuff". So you'll have to rely on my amazing authorial ability to aid in visualising scenes, objects and characters.**

** Keep the reviews coming, people. Thomas has emailed me Annabeth's number, so I now have a way of contacting Camp Half-Blood without having to rely on the Trent brothers using technology (and ****_ergo_**** putting lives at risk).**

** Well, this has been fun, and thanks for all the love. Dante and Thomas did come by today to see me, giving me quite a bit to write about (particularly Silena's diary; thanks to Aria Taylor and Riri Goei for suggesting they bring it to me), but I can't neglect my other fics, even to help Percy Jackson out (yes, I'm a man of enough honour to get Reyna flustered that way), so I won't continue this until I've done some work in other departments. So pray I write quickly and don't get distracted by other things :).**


	5. The Tale of Peter of Trent

The Tale of Peter of Trent

**A/N A brief intermission from the stories about the demigods. The non-author-note component of this chapter comprises, for the most part, the record of my next conversation with Mstrs Dante and Thomas Trent, the relevant portions of which were long enough to warrant their own chapter.**

I stared at the screen, thoughts buzzing about in my head, thinking about who would respond to this and how.

I was about to forward the review to Thomas and Dante, but then the scrap of paper weighed down by my cell phone next to me caught my eye.

I pulled it out and ran my gaze down the string of numbers on it.

I bit my lip as I unlocked my phone, considering, for a moment, the significance of the fact that this would be my first time calling a girl who was approximately the same age as me (A/N Artistic licence _not_ employed here).

I dialled the number, then pressed the phone against my ear, while my mind processed the fact that _I was calling Annabeth Chase_.

"Hello?" a girl answered after a few seconds.

"Uh, um, er…"

Even if I hadn't been talking to a girl, I had never liked calling people. Never been good at talking.

"Hello?" the girl asked again, a hint of annoyance in her voice.

I bit my lip. _Official business_, I told myself. _Calm down. There's work to be done._

"Annabeth Chase? Daughter of Athena?" I asked.

There was a pause.

"Yes…"

Her tone was guarded, and with good reason.

"I'm…uh, are you familiar with a certain Mstr Thomas Trent?"

There was some muffled chatter on the other end of the line.

"It's him!" I thought I heard her say.

"Yeah," she said into the phone. "I'm Annabeth, Thomas' friend. You're the writer he asked to help us publish our stories, right?"

"Yeah, that's me," I replied. "Thomas gave me your number. He said contacting you guys through emailing them was causing unacceptable degrees of collateral damage."

She snorted in amusement.

"So how's it coming along?"

"People think I'm just another fan fiction writer."

She laughed.

"That's alright. At least they're reading the stories."

"OK. Actually, I…uh, I called because I thought you might want to hear this review of your adventure with the tar monsters. It's anonymous, sadly, but the author signed off as 'scenic97'. He or she says, 'All I could think in the first part of the fight scene was Annabeth screaming "I am perfectly capable of fighting for myself, Percy!" Just because they are now "together" doesn't mean that Annabeth is now the damsel in distress. I'm glad you redeemed her character a bit.'"

Silence.

"What did he say?" I heard a boy's muffled voice.

Annabeth continued, but her voice was hushed and whispery.

"I…I'll tell Thomas to pass you one of my diary entries. You'll…you'll see why."

I got the feeling that this was going to be a little secret between Thomas, Annabeth, and I.

(A/N The rest of the review reads, "As for story ideas, there is probably some record of a date/ personal adventure between Hazel and Frank, that would be an interesting follow-up to this chapter." To answer that, one of the purposes of the tar monster story was to add Frank's perspective to the Leo/Sammy/Hazel thing, which was already resolved in MoA)

I nodded, then felt stupid because she wouldn't have been able to see me nod, then said, "OK," unconsciously adopting the same whispery volume.

"Annabeth, what is it?" the same distant, muffled male voice came.

"You'll see," she promised, her voice similarly muffled and distant.

"Anyway," she said to me, "we've got Silena's diary ready. We'll pass it to Thomas and Dante when they come by, along with…well, _that thing_."

Her voice softened greatly as she said the last few words.

"Alright, thanks. Bye."

"Bye," she hung up.

Shivers ran down my spine. A good story was coming. _Two_ good stories.

I could feel it.

It took nearly a week for Thomas and Dante to show up at my front gate. This time, thankfully, they were not being pursued by monsters.

"Guys!" I cracked a smile when I saw them.

Within minutes, the three of us, plus my brother, were seated around the table in my room where I put my computer.

"Well, Mstr John, have we got stories for you," Thomas smiled.

He pulled out three envelopes.

"This," he said, holding one up, "is the diary of the late Ms Silena Beauregard, along with a few assorted materials that you may need to cross-reference to substantiate or verify details in Ms Beauregard's account."

"This," he held up another envelope, "is from Ms Annabeth Chase. I see you've used the number I gave you."

I nodded.

"Excellent. The number of monsters we've attracted this week is at an all-time low."

That reminded me of something. The reaction of monsters to these two seemed to be comically overblown. I suspected it had something to do with their powers, but I decided to save the questions for later. Now that I was meeting them under monster-free circumstances, I could finally investigate the nature of their abilities uninterrupted.

"And this," Dante smiled, "is a special submission from…what'd Leo call it again? Oh yeah, Camp Fish-Blood. They heard about this little publishing program, so they got a fish-guy to ask us to give you…"

He checked the envelope.

"The Adventures of Bill the Hero Merman," he said, passing the package to me, "No relation to Billy the Hero."

Kevin's eyes lit up.

"ADVENTURE TIME!" he shouted.

Dante laughed and fist-bumped Kevin.

Thomas and I smiled at our brothers. For the first time I realised that they could easily be mistaken as siblings. Their ages were the same, though, but even though they looked uncannily similar, they wouldn't pass as twins. Fraternal twins, perhaps, but that was not an inference that came intuitively.

"Anyway," Thomas said, turning back to me.

"We've managed to stay under the monster radar for a while, so I suppose we could stay awhile. Anything to ask?"

I sucked in my breath. This was it. It was time to get answers.

"Tell me the story of the House of Trent."

Thomas' eyes seemed to sparkle.

"Well, I'm glad you asked. Alright, the story goes that Apollo, being the god of prophecy, received one himself, sometime in the 12th century. Essentially, he foresaw the formation of an alliance between demigods and monsters. Their own children would come to resent them so much that they would join forces with their mortal foes, the monsters, in order to bring down the gods."

"Now, if you've read enough books, you'd know that trying to avert a prophecy is futile. Apollo thus decided not to tell the other gods, because they'd probably make it worse, and instead formulated a solution on his own. The coming of this dark alliance was inevitable, so Apollo planned instead to create a weapon to counter it. This weapon would come in the form of a demigod, the most powerful ever to walk the Earth. Apollo informed Aphrodite, and persuaded her to play matchmaker, drawing together the blood of the demigod children of countless gods through their descendants. This was done over the next four centuries. And so, finally, all these bloodlines converged in the person of one Joseph of Trent, an Italian scholar."

"But at this stage, the blood of the gods was so dilute in his veins that Joseph of Trent was, for all intents and purposes, an ordinary mortal. To awaken the godly powers in him, a goddess needed to court him. Since Joseph lived only one generation away from the impending catastrophic alliance, Apollo could inform the other gods, since it was too late for them to hatch any harebrained, backfiring schemes. Now, Joseph was a pious and upright man, just the sort of father the Blade of Olympus, as Apollo had christened his secret weapon, would need. But this made the ordinary method of conceiving demigods impossible. So it was decided that Athena (who would be a good match for the scholar) should carry out this task."

"And indeed, so noble was the character of Joseph of Trent that she began to genuinely fall for him as she courted him and he proposed to her. She was almost as saddened as he was when she faked her own death, having established the intimacy required to sire a demigod. Hence a boy was formed from the thoughts of Athena, and greatly blessed by all the gods. Athena placed him among some rocks by a path where Joseph was walking. Upon hearing the wailing, the kindly Joseph rescued the boy, and christened him 'Peter', meaning 'rock', and raised him as his own, not realising that he really was, in fact, his own child."

"On Peter's seventh birthday, Athena reappeared to Joseph, and told him the truth about her nature. She gifted to him a sword, forged by Hephaestus himself and blessed by all the gods, constituted of a material that Hephaestus christened Tridentine steel. It was not ferrous, so not technically steel, but rather it was a perfect alloy of the silver of Artemis, that is, the material used by the hunters of Artemis in their arrowheads, and the metal that would come to be known as titanium."

"And this," Thomas produced his torch, which expanded into a blade, "is that blade. _Aletheia_. Truth."

He twirled it through the air, showing off some fancy swordplay.

"The words would glow blue whenever the person the wielder was speaking to spoke an untruth, and its hilt would turn frost-bitingly cold if the wielder told a lie, or if anyone other than its true owner tried to pick it up. The blade is a blade of justice, cutting through evil men and monsters like an oar through water, while passing through the innocent as though they weren't there. The wielder could consciously cause the blade to pass through the guilty, though, but the graver the guilt of the target, the harder it would be to do this."

"This mighty weapon served Peter of Trent well, as he was groomed by his father and the Olympians into the Blade of Olympus, servant, nay, _tool_ of the gods, with gifts and abilities from every one of them. The most powerful demigod of all time. While the Olympians honed his skills as a warrior, his father instilled in him the character of a hero."

"So, at the time, both Camp Jupiter and Camp Half-Blood were thrown into chaos. A son of Zeus led most of the Greeks in revolt against Chiron, and a rabble-rousing Roman civilian managed to turn most of New Rome against the gods. These two formed an alliance with each other, rallied the monsters against the gods, and manipulated mortals into attacking the centres of Western Civilisation. They then went about, stirring up chaos, destruction and war in Europe, working to bring ruin to civilisation and mankind. But to all the world, it was just another mortal conflict. This time, the demigods weren't leaders of nations or armies. Most of them simply served as regular soldiers, or low-ranking officers, albeit with devastating effect."

"These traitorous demigods were slain by the hand of the Blade of Olympus. He hunted down and killed every last one of them. Legions of monsters marched into Europe, but he reduced them all to dust. In a particularly memorable episode, he stormed a nest of lycanthropes to save a mortal woman betrothed to him, returning them all to Tartarus and even fighting and killing Lycaon himself to save his betrothed."

"All his life, Peter of Trent laboured to reverse the chaos the traitorous demigods brought about, but you will not find his name in any mortal chronicle. To all concerned, he was merely a soldier, but in fact he played the most pivotal role among all humans alive then. Indeed, it was the Blade of Olympus who brought about the Drought of Monsters, as we call it, that has lasted for the past few centuries. It was his work that resulted in the sharp decline in public belief in monsters and similar preternatural entities from around the 16th and 17th centuries onwards."

I slowly nodded my head, while my mind analysed his account. The facts fitted together pretty well.

"As a reward for his service as the Blade of Olympus, Peter of Trent was offered godhood, but turned it down, in much the way that Percy turned it down when it was offered to him, also to be with the woman he loved. Instead, the gods blessed his descendants to share his powers, except in a diminished form. We would each receive some of the powers he had, at random."

"This gift, however, could only be propagated by his male descendants, meaning that the girls would have it but not their children. Women who married outside the House would lose the gift. These succession rules gave rise to the title 'Sons of Trent'."

"The gift also resulted in us appearing absurdly attractive to monsters as meals, though, as you may have noticed. To compensate for this, the Olympians swore an oath to deliver a weapon of Tridentine steel to every member of the House of Trent so gifted on his or her seventh birthday, except firstborn sons, who would take their fathers' weapons when they came of age."

I slowly teased out the implications.

"So…you're a direct male-line descendant from Peter of Trent?"

"Yes. In holding Aletheia, I hold the title of Blade of Olympus. I am bound, even more so than the rest of my family, to do the bidding of the gods, and…well, the worst mortal conflicts are not just between mortal institutions, but preternatural agents. Some are between demigods, like the Second World War. Some worse ones are between Romans and Greeks, like the American Civil War. But the gravest are between the forces of Order and Chaos themselves, like the one in which the services of the Blade of Olympus were required. The human institutions had their allegiances, and Peter of Trent fought for the organisation on the side of Order. Thus, since then, our family has always been subject to the only organisation today that still answers to 'Rome'."

"This blessing was so powerful that the gods were henceforth forbidden to enlist our assistance unless they ever faced a similar triple threat of mortals, monsters and demigods. Fortunately, this has not happened yet. But we do liaise with the other children of the gods, as we have done in order to bring you these stories, and we sometimes have our own errands to run."

His tone changed as he said the last few words. I got the feeling he wasn't talking about buying groceries.

Dante checked the time on my computer.

"Come on, bro, we're gonna be late," he said, tugging his brother's arm.

Thomas nodded.

"Well, maybe I'll tell you about one of those errands someday," he said, his tone and expression lightening, "but in the meantime, we have more of them to run."

The two of them got up and left.

I stared at the door as Thomas closed it behind him, thinking his story over, wondering what errands they must be off to, until I sighted Kevin opening the envelope with Silena's diary inside.

I turned back to my computer.

It was time to write.

**A/N Well, I guess that explains a lot about our narrators…or whatever it is you call those two. Anyway, hang tight: next up, Silena Beauregard and the Lydian Drakon.**


	6. Silena Beauregard and the Lydian Drakon

Silena Beauregard and the Lydian Drakon

The second I heard the conch shell, I was out of the cabin.

_They're back._

I mean, I didn't even bother to comb my hair or put on makeup. That's how worried I was.

Luke promised he wouldn't be hurt. He _promised_.

But I wasn't sure if he would let his cruise ship get destroyed just so he could keep his promise. He had…changed, a _lot_, since he'd become Kronos. He wasn't kind and charming and friendly anymore. That coldness he'd get in his eyes whenever he was angry…it was in his voice now whenever he spoke to me through the charm.

I slipped one hand into my pocket as I ran towards the beach.

I had no idea how the bracelet worked, but it was enchanted so that it would always come back to me if I was separated from it. And ever since he gave it to me, Luke's voice would randomly pop into my head and ask me questions. I would answer him with my thoughts, and he would hear me.

My fingers curled around it, and I thought to Luke, _He'd better be safe_.

No. Not Luke. _Kronos_.

There was no reply.

I felt like praying to Mum, or someone, _anyone_, but I was worried they'd figure out I was the spy.

There was a whole crowd of people talking on the beach.

_They're back_, I told myself again, but some part of me told me they weren't.

I pushed to the front, dread, anticipation and excitement building in my gut.

_Charlie's back._

I finally came out in front of the group.

Percy was talking to Annabeth. She was grabbing his arm.

Normally I'd squeal inside when I saw the two of them together, but I was too worried about Charlie then. The tension and anticipation grew inside me. I looked around.

"Where's Charlie?"

Percy stopped talking.

And then I saw his eyes as he looked at Chiron.

They were filled with despair and hopelessness. He had been dreading meeting me.

Chiron cleared his throat. "Silena, my dear, let's talk about this at the Big House—"

My eyes widened. My heart sank. Immediately, I knew what had happened.

"No," I muttered, tears welling in my eyes.

"No. _No._"

I wanted to cry into Charlie's shoulder. I wanted him to hold me in those strong arms of his, to stroke my back, kiss my hair, and tell me everything was going to be alright. I wanted him to wipe away the tears and kiss me to make me feel better.

But there was no more Charlie. He was dead. He would never hold me, or take an arrow for me during capture the flag, or ambush the monsters attacking me in the woods, ever again.

He was dead.

I wanted to punch Kronos. I wanted to take the charm and throw it into the fires of the forge, where Charlie had spent most of his life. Most of all, I wanted Charlie back. But I knew it couldn't be done.

The sorrow took over completely, and I lost control and began to cry.

I don't know how long I stood there, sobbing in front of the silent crowd, before I felt a strong arm around my shoulders. It wasn't like Charlie's; it was a girl's.

"Come on, girl," Clarisse said. "Let's get to the Big House. I'll make you some hot chocolate."

I sniffled, and walked with her. It was a little better, now that my friend was with me, but she was nothing compared to Charlie.

We didn't talk. She just made me the drink while I sobbed into the Ping-Pong table at the rec room.

I didn't touch it.

* * *

Eventually, the others began showing up. Fortunately, it had been long enough for me to get enough of a hold on myself to know that I would make things uncomfortably awkward if I continued crying.

Clarisse was sitting by my side, her hand on my shoulder, watching me stare at the Ping-Pong net, thinking about all the sweet things Charlie did for me, when someone, Michael Yew, I think, came in and started arguing with her.

I vaguely remembered them having a fight over some stupid piece of loot, some chariot or something. But I was still too upset over Charlie's death to care. Especially since it was my fault.

The only thing I remember from then was Clarisse saying to me, "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to get into this when you've just lost... Anyway, I apologize. To _you_. Nobody else."

I continued staring at the Ping-Pong net.

Clarisse threw her knife on the Ping-Pong table. "All of you can fight this war without Ares. Until I get satisfaction, no one in my cabin is lifting a finger to help. Have fun dying."

No-one spoke as she stormed out of the room.

The others talked for a bit, and then Chiron said, "Percy has brought something I think you should hear. Percy – the Great Prophecy."

I started to pay attention, but continued staring at the net. I'd heard things about the Great Prophecy. If it offered a way for me to get back at that backbiter Kronos, I was in.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Percy clumsily attempt to undo the string that bound a curled-up parchment.

He began to read.

"_A half-blood of the eldest dogs…_"

"Er, Percy?" Annabeth interrupted. "That's_ gods. _Not_ dogs._"

"Oh, right," Percy said.

"_A half-blood of the eldest gods…shall reach sixteen against all odds…_"

Percy stopped reading. There was dread in his eyes.

"_And see the world in endless sleep,_

_The hero's soul, cursed blade shall reap._"

Percy stopped again. This time, there was more than just dread in his eyes. There was fear. Almost panic.

"Percy," Chiron urged. "Read the rest."

"_A single choice shall end his days._

_Olympus to per – pursue –_"

"_Preserve_," Annabeth said gently. "It means to _save._"

"I know what it means," Percy grumbled. "_Olympus to preserve or raze._"

Stupid prophecies. Why do they always have to be so confusing?

The room was silent. I was still trying to figure out what the prophecy meant and how we could use it to stop Kronos when Connor said, "Raise is good, isn't it?"

"Not raise," I said. My voice was empty and echoey, but I didn't care.

"R-a-z-e means destroy."

"Obliterate," Annabeth said. "Annihilate. Turn to rubble."

"Got it. Thanks," Percy said sarcastically.

I finally shifted my gaze to Percy. Kronos was trying to destroy Olympus. Percy could stop him, and bring him to justice, not just for that, but for what he did to Charlie, and for forcing me to help him do it.

Chiron closed his eyes as if he were saying a prayer. In horse form, his head almost brushed the lights in the rec room.

"You see now, Percy, why we thought it best not to tell you the whole prophecy? You've had enough on your shoulders—"

"Without realizing I was going to die in the end anyways?" he said. "Yeah, I get it."

Chiron gazed at him sadly.

"Percy," Annabeth said. "You know prophecies always have double meanings. It might not literally mean you die."

"Sure," I said. "A single choice shall end his days. That has tons of meanings, right?"

"Maybe we can stop it," Jake offered.

"The hero's soul, cursed blade shall reap. Maybe we could find the cursed blade and destroy it. Sounds like Kronos's scythe, right?"

"Perhaps we should let Percy think about these lines," Chiron said. "He needs time—"

"No," Percy said, as he folded up the prophecy and shoved it into his pocket. "I don't need time. If I die, I die. I can't worry about that, right?"

Silence.

"Let's move on," Percy said. "We've got other problems. We've got a spy."

Michael scowled. "A spy?"

A small part of me died inside.

And the rest of me followed suit, as Percy described what happened on Kronos' cruise ship.

How Charlie had died.

And I had to listen to the whole thing, knowing it was my fault.

I felt the silver scythe bracelet weigh down my pocket. And the tears began rolling down my cheeks.

Annabeth put an arm around my shoulders without speaking, to comfort me. I was grateful for the small gesture.

"Well," Connor said uncomfortably, "We've suspected there might be a spy for years, right? Somebody kept passing information to Luke – like the location of the Golden Fleece a couple of years ago. It must be somebody who knew him well."

I felt Annabeth's grip on my shoulder tighten, so I guessed Connor had glanced at her. She'd known Luke better than anyone.

"Um, I mean, it could be anybody."

"Yes," Katie said.

"Like one of Luke's siblings."

Travis and Connor both started arguing with her.

I couldn't take it any longer.

"Stop!" I banged the table so hard my hot chocolate spilled. "Charlie's dead and...and you're all arguing like little kids!"

I began to sob into the table again.

For a while, the only sound was that of my sobbing, and hot chocolate dripping onto the floor.

"She's right," Pollux said at last. "Accusing each other doesn't help."

I looked up and sniffled, silently glad they'd decided to stop. It was extremely painful to hear them accusing each other of causing Charlie's death, while knowing it was me.

"We need to keep our eyes open for a sliver necklace with a scythe charm. If Kronos had one, the spy probably does too."

I felt the cursed bracelet grow heavier again.

Michael grunted. "We need to find this spy before we plan our next operation. Blowing up the Princess Andromeda won't stop Kronos forever."

"No indeed," Chiron said. "In fact his next assault is already on the way."

"You mean the 'bigger threat' Poseidon mentioned?" Percy asked.

Chiron and Annabeth looked at each other.

"Percy," Chiron said, "we didn't want to tell you until you returned to camp. You needed a break with your… mortal friends."

I knew they were talking about Rachel. Ordinarily I'd have been all over the new action on the Percabeth front, being a daughter of Aphrodite and all, but this time I was too distraught at the severance of Charlena to really care.

"Tell me what's happened," I said.

Chiron picked up a bronze goblet from the snack table and poured the water in it onto the nacho-cheese hot plate. Steam billowed up, forming a rainbow in the fluorescent lights.

He tossed a drachma into the mist, muttering, "O Iris, Goddess of the Rainbow, show us the threat."

The mist shimmered. We saw the familiar image of a smouldering volcano – Mount St. Helens. As we watched, the side of the mountain exploded. Fire, ash, and lava rolled out.

A faint, distant newscaster's voice was saying "—_even larger than last year's eruption, and geologists warn that the mountain may not be done._"

With a thundering crash, the mountain imploded, and something rose through the fire and ash. It was difficult to see what it was, but I knew _who_ we were watching.

"It's him," Percy said. "Typhon."

I balled up my fists, hatred welling within me. Chrion had told us about Typhon before. But if the gods didn't stop it, it wouldn't matter if Kronos had a cruise ship full of monsters or not. Charlie's death would have been in vain.

Chiron nodded.

"The most horrible monster of all, the biggest single threat the gods ever face. He has been freed under the mountain at last. But this scene is from two days ago. _Here_ is what is happening today." Chiron waved his hand and the image changed. Storm clouds rolled across the Midwest plains. Lightning flickered. Lines of tornadoes tore through the countryside – ripping up houses and trailers, tossing cars around like Matchbox toys.

"_Monumental floods,_"an announcer was saying. "_Five states declared disaster areas as the freak storm system sweeps east, continuing its path of destruction._"

The image focused on a pillar of storm closing in on some Midwest City. It was impossible to tell which one. Inside the storm I could glimpse part of the hated giant: a smoky arm attached to a dark clawed hand the size of a city block.

Other smaller forms darted through the clouds, circling the monster, like tiny moths around a giant fluorescent tube.

The gods.

Apollo's chariot flashed by, and Athena, in owl form, dive-bombed the giant.

"Are those… the gods?" Percy said.

"Yes, Percy," Chiron said. "They have been fighting him for days now, trying to slow him down. But Typhoon is marching forward – toward New York. Toward Olympus."

No-one spoke for a while.

"How long until he gets here?"

"Unless the gods can stop him? Perhaps five days. Most of the Olympians are there... except your father, who has a war of his own to fight."

"But then who's guarding Olympus?"

Connor shook his head. "If Typhon gets to New York, it won't matter who's guarding Olympus."

Percy thought for a while.

"It's a trick," he said. "We have to warn the gods. Something else is going to happen."

Chiron looked at me gravely. "Something worse than Typhon? I hope not."

"We have to defend Olympus," Percy insisted. "Kronos has another attack planned."

"He did," Travis reminded me, "But you sunk his ship."

I looked at Percy. _Please, please tell me Charlie's death counted for something, at least._

But inside I knew that, even if the gods stopped Typhon, that wouldn't be the last of Kronos' ploys. He was cunning. I'd seen that from our conversations.

"Maybe you're right," Percy said, but I could hear the doubt in his voice.

"Well," Chiron said, "I think that's enough for the night."

He waved his hand and the steam dissipated. The stormy battle of Typhon and the gods disappeared.

"That's an understatement," Percy muttered.

And the war council adjourned.

That night, during dinner, Annabeth lent me her phone and I called my Dad.

As usual, he was kind and gentle to me. He tried to comfort me, and now that I think about it, it was quite a heroic effort, holding up under my wailing about Charlie for half an hour. When I was done bawling my eyes out, he promised to send me a box of chocolates the next day.

When I went back to my bunk and saw the pictures of Charlie on the wall behind it, fresh tears came to my eyes.

I cried myself to sleep that night.

* * *

The first thing I did the next morning was think of Charlie, as always.

The next thing was to remember he was gone, and I began to cry into my blanket.

I didn't know how long I spent there before one of my sisters came to check if I was OK.

Slowly, I calmed down. I dried my tears and sniffled.

"Yeah," I mumbled, "I'm fine."

"Alright, Aphrodite," I clapped my hands, but my voice was weak and hoarse and hollow.

The others fell silent and turned towards me remarkably quickly.

"Let's get ready for the inspection."

The others were unusually quiet, reserved and obedient. I mean, normally they took inspection and making things look pretty very seriously, being children of Aphrodite, but this time the silence would only be interrupted by my sniffling or the occasional request or question.

I sniffled again. They all knew about Charlie, and with all of us being children of Aphrodite, they could completely understand the pain I felt. I appreciated the thought, but it was a constant reminder to me of what had just happened. On the one hand, I wanted to never forget Charlie. On hand, thinking about him hurt. A lot. the other

So I silently carried my bittersweet ambivalence with me as we worked.

No one bothered me during breakfast. They left me alone to stare listlessly at my food. I was grateful for that, I suppose. I was still far too shattered by Charlie's death to have meaningful conversations with anyone.

I finished breakfast and wordlessly returned to my bunk, and continued staring at the pictures of Charlie, thinking about him, while waiting for Percy and Annabeth to arrive for the inspection.

Chiron came in personally to give me the chocolates from my Dad. I was afraid he was going to give me a long lecture or speech, but I suppose when he met my eyes he could tell that something like that would only make it worse. Instead, he simply put his hand on my shoulder, and said, quietly, "I'm sorry."

He put the chocolates in my lap, and trotted out without speaking.

I tried one, and made a face. It was as bland and tasteless as cardboard. But still, I was grateful; it was a sweet gesture from my Dad.

When Percy and Annabeth did arrive, I turned around to face them, but that was about it. I didn't pay any attention to their comments, for a change, and just continued thinking about Charlie.

"Five out of five. Great job as usual, Silena," Annabeth said.

I nodded nonchalantly.

"You want a bonbon?" I asked. "My dad sent them. He thought…he thought they might cheer me up."

"Are they any good?" Percy asked.

I shook my head. "They taste like cardboard."

Percy shrugged and tried one.

"I'll pass," Annabeth said.

Percy chewed and swallowed, then he met my eyes, and his demeanour turned serious.

"We'll come and see you later, OK?" he said gently, bending down to be at eye level with me.

I sniffled, and nodded.

It really hurt to have to see how loving and loyal these friends of mine were, while knowing it was my own treachery that killed Charlie.

* * *

That afternoon, we gathered at the campfire to burn Charlie's shroud. Today the flames were black. It was nice to know that the others cared, but that knowledge also reminded me that I was the one to cause his death, when I should have cared for him the most.

Charlie's shroud was made of metal links, like chainmail. I'd spent hours watching Charlie at work, bringing these sorts of things together in the forge. The realisation that I'd never see or feel those strong arms again cut into me like a knife once more.

The shroud melted in the fire and turned into golden smoke.

And it was only then that the full realisation of Charlie's death hit me. Charlie was dead. Just like that. Gone up in flames. _His_ flames.

No. _My_ flames.

My tears burst forth, like water from behind a broken dam.

I buried my face in my hands, and began crying again.

Chris and Clarisse tried to comfort me. I could sympathise with Chris. Having been one of Luke's men, Charlie's death would weigh on him, but not as much as it would on me.

As often happens when I think of Charlie and burst into tears, I had barely any memory of doing so, and did not accurately perceive the passing of time. I don't know how long I spent like that, but eventually I heard Percy's voice.

"Hey, Silena, I'm really sorry."

I looked up, wiped my tears away, and sniffled.

Percy cleared his throat. "Silena, you know Beckendorf carried your picture. He looked at it right before we went into battle. You meant a lot to him. You made the last year the best of his life."

My lip quivered. I lasted for about half a second before I began sobbing again.

"Good work, Percy," Clarisse muttered.

"No, it's all right," I stilled myself forcefully, halting the sobs.

"Thank…Thank you, Percy. I should go."

"You want company?" Clarisse asked.

I shook her head and ran off.

I retreated to my bunk, and continued crying.

I didn't come back out until the next day.

* * *

The conch shell blew.

I got out of bed, ignoring my comb and my makeup. What was the point? I'd lost Charlie.

I trudged slowly and wearily towards the campfire.

There was no point hurrying. Since I'd lost Charlie, nothing could be great enough to make me feel happy again. Since I'd lost Charlie, nothing could be terrible enough to make me feel sad again.

Annabeth stood there, holding the conch shell, concern in her eyes.

"We've found Percy," she was saying to Chiron.

"He says we have to go to Empire State Building now," she raised her voice, addressing everyone. "All of us."

"He says it's important. He says something bad is going to happen tonight, and that all of us need to be there, with armour and weapons, as soon as possible."

Chiron frowned.

"'Important'? What does that mean?"

"That's all he said," Annabeth replied.

An electric shiver passed over me. It could only mean one thing: Kronos was about to attack Olympus.

And we would have to stop him.

Finally, I would get the chance to fight back against Kronos. The monster who had killed my boyfriend, and dragged me into it too.

Chiron raised a finger and opened his mouth like he was about to say something, then lowered it.

"Alright. Let's go. Everyone, get your things. Head to the vans in ten minutes," he ordered the campers.

Clarisse walked up to him.

"Like I said at the war council, Ares isn't going."

Michael joined them, indignation in his eyes.

"You're still mad about that!? You know what, Clarisse? You can have your stupid chariot. It's not worth fighting about anymore!"

Clarisse glared at him.

"It's too late now. You've insulted the honour of Ares for the last time," Clarisse growled.

She stormed off, as Michael shouted some not-so-nice things at her.

Surprisingly, she didn't even look back.

I sighed. I wanted to scream at Clarisse. We finally had the chance to give Kronos what he deserved for what he did to Charlie, and there she was again, bickering over loot.

But still, she was a good and loyal friend. I didn't want to lash out at her like that. I knew she cared about me. It was just that her loyalty to her siblings was more important to her. And I could understand that.

With nothing left to do, I could only trudge back to my cabin. I just hoped she'd come to her senses soon.

But at least, I would be able to help bring Kronos down, even if Clarisse wouldn't be there to help me.

As I strapped on my armour, I repeated two words over and over in my head.

_For Charlie._

* * *

The long trip in the van was one of the tensest and exciting ones I'd ever experienced. Knowing that we would be battling Kronos when we got to the end of it only made the pain more excruciating.

I swore I would make him pay when I got there. These last three days had been the hardest and most painful of my life. And it was all his fault.

I spent most of the trip shedding my last tears over Charlie, at least, the last until all this was over. I was _not _going to let Kronos get away with this. I couldn't afford to let me emotions distract me now, so I walled them up, saving them for later. There were still plenty of tears to be shed over Charlie, but I would have to focus on fighting Kronos for now.

Anyway, as we spilled out of the vans, everyone looked nervous, myself included. After all, we all knew what happened if you left one demigod on his own. Putting forty together was practically begging for trouble.

Annabeth walked up to Percy, and Percy stared stupidly at her for a few seconds.

She frowned.

"What is it?"

"What's what?" Percy asked.

"You're looking at me funny."

Percy shifted his weight and averted her gaze. "It's, uh, nothing."

Some of my siblings snickered.

I bit my lip as I felt a stab of pain in my heart at this scene. They used to do this to me too, before Charlie and I became a couple.

He turned to the rest of us. "Thanks for coming, everybody. Chiron, after you."

The old centaur shook his head. "I came to wish you luck, my boy. But I make it a point never to visit Olympus unless I am summoned."

"But you're our leader."

He smiled. "I am your trainer, your teacher. That is not the same as being your leader. I will go gather what allies I can. It may not be too late to convince my brother centaurs to help. Meanwhile, you called the campers here, Percy. You are the leader."

Everyone looked at him expectantly. Even myself. Now that I thought about it, he was the silent, unacknowledged leader of Camp Half-Blood. Everyone looked up to him and respected him. He would have to lead us in the final battle against Kronos.

He took a deep breath. "Okay, like I told Annabeth on the phone, something bad is going to happen by tonight. Some kind of trap. We've got to get an audience with Zeus and convince him to defend the city. Remember, we can't take no for an answer."

He asked Argus to watch Mrs O'Leary, his giant hellhound.

Neither dog nor guard looked very happy about it.

Chiron shook his hand. "You'll do well, Percy. Just remember your strengths and beware your weaknesses."

He nodded and smiled, but being a daughter of Aphrodite, I could see the doubt beneath his expression.

"Let's go," he told the campers, leading them into the Empire State Building.

There was some excited chatter among the others as we entered. Most of us, myself included, had never been to Olympus. Despite the gravity of the situation, they couldn't help but feel thrilled that they were about to visit the home of the gods for the first time in their lives.

A security guard was sitting behind the desk in the lobby, reading _New Moon_, for some reason. He glanced up when we all filed in with our weapons and armour clanking.

"School group? We're about to close up."

"No," Percy said. "Six-hundredth floor."

He looked us over. His eyes were pale blue and his head was completely bald. I couldn't tell if he was human or not, but he seemed to notice our weapons, so I guess he wasn't fooled by the Mist.

"There is no six-hundredth floor, kid." He said it like it was a required line he didn't believe. "Move along."

Percy leaned across the desk. "Forty demigods attract an awful lot of monsters. You really want us hanging out in your lobby?"

He thought about that. Then he hit a buzzer and the security gate swung open. "Make it quick."

"You don't want us going through the metal detectors," Percy added.

"Um, no," he agreed. "Elevator on the right. I guess you know the way."

Percy tossed him a golden drachma and we marched on through.

Percy decided it would take two trips to get everybody up in the elevator. I went with the first group, with Percy and Annabeth. I almost smiled a little when I heard that old disco song "Stayin' Alive" playing in the elevator. Almost.

The elevator doors finally dinged open. In front of us, a path of floating stones led through the clouds up to Mount Olympus, hovering two kilometres over Manhattan.

Olympus was magnificent. Miraculously floating atop the clouds was the peak of a mountain, without the base beneath. Mansions glittered gold and white against its sides. Gardens bloomed on a hundred terraces. Smoke rose from braziers that lined the winding streets. And right at the top of the snow-capped crest rose the main palace of the gods. It was grand and majestic, but something felt wrong about the home of the Olympians.

Then I realised the mountain was silent – no music, no voices, no laughter.

Annabeth studied Percy. "You look… different," she decided. "Where exactly did you go?"

Even though I'd temporarily pushed Charlie out of my mind, I hadn't gotten over his death enough yet to be getting excited again whenever Percy and Annabeth had cute moments, so I ignored them continued examining Olympus.

The elevator doors opened again, and rest of the campers joined us.

"Tell you later," Percy said. "Come on."

We made our way across the sky bridge into the streets of Olympus.

I could tell this place used to be vibrant and full of life. There were shops and parks all over the place, but they were all closed and empty. Two Muses sat on a bench and strummed flaming lyres, but they weren't putting their hearts in it. A lone Cyclops swept the street, using an uprooted oak tree as a broom. One of the inhabitants of the mansions, a minor god, probably, ducked into his house when he spotted us from his balcony, closing the shutters.

We passed under a big marble archway with statues of who I assumed were Zeus and Hera on either side.

Annabeth made a face at the queen of the gods.

"Hate her," she muttered.

"Has she been cursing you or something?" Percy asked.

"Just little stuff so far," she said. "Her sacred animal is the cow, right?"

"Right."

"So she sends cows after me."

Percy tried not to smile. My heart was still too numb to be affected by the silliness of the idea.

"Cows? In San Francisco?"

"Oh, yeah. Usually I don't see them, but the cows leave me little presents all over the place – in our backyard, on the sidewalk, in the school hallways. I have to be careful where I step."

"Look!" Pollux cried, pointing toward the horizon. "What is that?"

We all froze. Blue lights were streaking across the evening sky toward Olympus like tiny comets.

They seemed to be coming from all over the city, heading straight toward the mountain. As they closed in, they fizzled out. We watched them for several minutes and they didn't seem to have any effect, but still, it was weird.

"Like infrared scopes," Michael muttered. "We're being targeted."

"Let's get to the palace," Percy said.

No one was guarding the hall of the gods. The gold-and-silver doors stood wide open. Our footsteps echoed as we walked into the throne room.

Well, actually, I wouldn't call it a room. I'd been in smaller stadia. It was the size of Madison Square Garden. High above, the blue ceiling glittered with constellations. Twelve giant empty thrones stood in a U around a hearth.

In one corner, a house-size globe of water hovered in the air, and inside swam a weird half-cow, half-serpent creature.

"Moooo!" he said happily, turning in a circle, as though it recognised us as old friends.

Percy, for some reason, smiled.

"Hey, man," he said. "They treating you okay?"

I remembered. Percy had told us this story a few years back. He had to keep this creature, called the Ophiotaurus, out of the Titans' hands, otherwise they would have killed it and burnt its insides (_ew!_) to gain the power to topple Olympus.

"Mooo," the Ophiotaurus answered.

We walked toward the thrones, and a woman's voice said, "Hello again, Percy Jackson. You and your friends are welcome."

A woman in a simple brown dress stood by the hearth, poking the flames with a stick.

Percy bowed. "Lady Hestia."

Of course. The goddess of the hearth.

We followed suit.

Hestia trained her red glowing eyes on Percy.

"I see you went through with your plan. You bear the curse of Achilles."

The other campers started muttering among themselves: What did she say? What about Achilles?

"You must be careful," Hestia warned him. "You gained much on your journey. But you are still blind to the most important truth. Perhaps a glimpse is in order."

Annabeth nudged him. "Um…what is she talking about?"

Percy stared into Hestia's eyes, and then his knees buckled.

Annabeth grabbed him before he fell. "Percy! What happened?"

"Did… did you see that?" he asked.

"See what?"

He glanced at Hestia.

"How long was I out?" he muttered, changing the subject.

Annabeth knit her eyebrows. "Percy, you weren't out at all. You just looked at Hestia for like one second and collapsed."

"Um, Lady Hestia," he said, gently pushing Annabeth's hands off his arms, "we've come on urgent business. We need to see-"

"We know what you need," a man's voice said.

A god shimmered into existence next to Hestia. He looked about twenty-five, with curly salt-and-pepper hair and elfish features. He wore a military pilot's flight suit, with tiny bird's wings fluttering on his helmet and his black leather boots. In the crook of his arm was a long staff entwined with two living serpents.

I knew who it was. Hermes, the God of Messengers. I'd never seen any of the gods before, except Mum, but the man looked the part.

"I will leave you now," Hestia said. She bowed to the aviator and disappeared into smoke. Wise of her. Hermes did not look happy.

"Hello, Percy."

His brow furrowed as though he was annoyed with him.

Percy bowed awkwardly. "Lord Hermes."

"Hello, George," he said. "Hey, Martha."

Everyone looked around. Who were George and Martha? Where were they?

"Um, Hermes," Percy said. "We need to talk to Zeus. It's important."

Hermes's eyes were steely cold. "I am his messenger. May I take a message?"

The others shifted restlessly.

_Great. Just stand by idly while Percy talks to a god_, was the general sentiment.

"You guys," Percy said. "Why don't you do a sweep of the city? Check the defences. See who's left in Olympus. Meet Annabeth and me back here in thirty minutes."

I frowned. "But—"

"That's a good idea," Annabeth said. "Connor and Travis, you two lead."

The Stolls seemed to like that – getting handed an important responsibility right in front of their dad. They usually never led anything except toilet paper raids.

"We're on it!" Travis said. They herded us out of the throne room, leaving Annabeth and Percy with Hermes.

We moved along the edge of the mountain. But even as we approached, the silence didn't abate.

I frowned. Even from this height, we should've been able to hear the noise of a busy city like Manhattan.

"Something's wrong," I told the Stolls.

Connor nodded in agreement.

"The city's too far down for us to see. Let's keep moving; there's probably some way for us to check on it."

"Wait!" Travis grabbed his brother's arm.

Everyone looked at the sky, where he was pointing.

At first, I didn't realise what was wrong. Then, Katie gasped.

"The blue lights stopped!"

"So what's it mean?" Will from the Apollo cabin asked.

Connor frowned. "I don't know. Come on, we need to see the city."

Eventually, we came to a small park with those tourist binoculars there, where you could pop in one drachma to get a close-up of Manhattan.

Travis went first. A confused look passed over his face, then he gasped in surprise.

He let Connor use the binoculars next, and he had the same reaction.

By then, everyone was swarming the binoculars.

Travis turned to me.

"We've got to tell Percy. Silena, you're in charge for now."

I nodded, and was about to start using one of them when another camper snatched it up.

So I was left waiting until Percy and Annabeth showed up a few minutes later.

When Percy ran in, he was looking around, confused.

"I don't…hear anything," Annabeth said.

His eyes lit up with the realisation.

"What did they do?" His voice sounded tight and angry. "What did they do to my city?"

He pushed Michael away from the binoculars and took a look.

At the same time, Katie offered me her binoculars.

In the streets below, traffic had stopped. Pedestrians were lying on the sidewalks, or curled up in doorways.

There was no sign of violence, no wrecks, nothing like that. It was as if all the people in New York had simply decided to stop whatever they were doing and pass out.

I gasped.

"Are they dead?" I asked in astonishment, pushing the binoculars away.

Percy looked grim.

"Not dead," he said. "Morpheus has put the entire island of Manhattan to sleep. The invasion has started."

* * *

Mrs O'Leary seemed to be enjoying the sleeping city. We found her attacking the contents of an overturned hot dog stand while the owner was curled up on the sidewalk, sucking his thumb.

Argus was waiting for us. He didn't say anything, of course, but his expression made it clear that he was freaked out.

Percy told him what we'd learned in Olympus, and how the gods would not be riding to the rescue. Argus rolled his eyes in disgust, which was pretty surreal since it made his whole body swirl.

"You'd better get back to camp," Percy told him. "Guard it as best you can."

He pointed at Percy and raised his eyebrow quizzically.

"I'm staying," Percy said.

Argus nodded, as though to say, _OK_. He looked at Annabeth and drew a circle in the air with his finger.

"Yes," Annabeth agreed. "I think it's time."

"For what?" Percy asked.

Argus rummaged around in the back of his van. He brought out a bronze shield and passed it to Annabeth. It looked pretty much standard issue-the same kind of round shield we always used in capture the flag. But when Annabeth set it on the ground, the reflection on the polished metal changed from sky and buildings to the Statue of Liberty – which wasn't anywhere close to us.

I bit my lip. I remembered this shield. I'd watched Charlie make it. My memories and emotions threatened to overflow the dam I had erected, but I held them off. Barely.

"Whoa," Percy said. "A video shield."

"One of Daedalus's ideas," Annabeth said. "I had Beckendorf make this before—"

She glanced at me. I blinked back tears.

"Um, anyway, the shield bends sunlight or moonlight from anywhere in the world to create a reflection. You can literally see any target under the sun or moon, as long as natural light is touching it. Look."

We crowded around as Annabeth concentrated. It was like we were flying through Manhattan. We were in the Central Park Zoo, then zooming down East 60th, past Bloomingdale's, then turning on Third Avenue.

"Whoa," Connor said. "Back up. Zoom in right there."

"What?" Annabeth said nervously. "You see invaders?"

"No, right there – Dylan's Candy Bar." Connor grinned at his brother. "Dude, it's open. And everyone is asleep. Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

"Connor!" Katie scolded. "This is serious. You are not going to loot a candy store in the middle of a war!"

"Sorry," Connor muttered, but he wasn't exactly contrite.

Annabeth passed her hand in front of the shield, and another scene popped up: FDR Drive, looking across the river at Lighthouse Park. "This will let us see what's going on across the city," she said.

"Thank you, Argus. Hopefully we'll see you back at camp…someday."

Argus grunted. He glanced at Percy, then climbed into his van. He and the two harpy drivers swerved away, weaving around clusters of idle cars that littered the road.

Percy whistled for Mrs O'Leary, and she came bounding over.

"Hey, girl," he said. "You remember Grover? The satyr we met in the park?"

"WOOF!"

"I need you to find him," Percy said. "Make sure he's still awake. We're going to need his help. You got that? Find Grover!"

Mrs O'Leary gave him a sloppy wet kiss, and then she raced off north.

Pollux crouched next to a sleeping policeman. "I don't get it. Why didn't we fall asleep too? Why just the mortals?"

"This is a huge spell," I said. "The bigger the spell, the easier it is to resist. If you want to sleep millions of mortals, you've got to cast a very thin layer of magic. Sleeping demigods is much harder."

Percy stared at me. "When did you learn so much about magic?"

I blushed. "I don't spend all my time on my wardrobe."

"Percy," Annabeth called. She was still looking at the shield. "You'd better see this."

We crowded around Charlie's shield again.

The bronze image showed Long Island Sound near La Guardia. A fleet of a dozen speedboats raced through the dark water toward Manhattan. Each boat was packed with demigods in full Greek armour. At the back of the lead boat, a purple banner emblazoned with a black scythe flapped in the night wind.

Seeing the scythe made me feel sick to the pit of my stomach. It was the emblem of Kronos. The one on the bracelet I carried. The bracelet that had cost Charlie his life.

"Scan the perimeter of the island," I said. "Quick."

Annabeth shifted the scene south to the harbour. A Staten Island Ferry was ploughing through the waves near Ellis Island. The deck was crowded with dracaenae and a whole pack of hellhounds. Swimming in front of the ship was a pod of marine mammals. At first I thought they were dolphins. Then I saw their doglike faces and the swords strapped to their waists, and I realized they were telkhines – sea demons.

The scene shifted again: the Jersey shore, right at the entrance to the Lincoln Tunnel. A hundred assorted monsters were marching past the lanes of stopped traffic: giants with clubs, rogue Cyclopes, a few fire-spitting dragons, and, weirdly enough, a World War II-era Sherman tank, pushing cars out of its way as it rumbled into the tunnel.

The discomfort at seeing Kronos' emblem was replaced by fear. There were at least three hundred enemies attacking Manhattan, and the forty of us would have to fight every one of them.

But I reached into my pocket, curling my fingers around the hated bracelet.

_Kronos will pay._

"What's happening with the mortals outside Manhattan?" Percy said. "Is the whole state asleep?"

Annabeth frowned. "I don't think so, but it's strange. As far as I can tell from these pictures, Manhattan is totally asleep. Then there's like a fifty-mile radius around the island where time is running really, really slow. The closer you get to Manhattan, the slower it is."

She showed us another scene – a New Jersey highway. It was Saturday evening, so the traffic wasn't as bad as it might've been on a weekday. The drivers looked awake, but the cars were moving at about a kilometre an hour. Birds inched through the sky, their wings moving up and down at a centimetre a second.

"Kronos," Percy said. "He's slowing time."

"Hecate might be helping," Katie said. "Look how the cars are all veering away from the Manhattan exits, like they're getting a subconscious message to turn back."

"I don't know." Annabeth sounded really frustrated.

"But somehow they've surrounded Manhattan in layers of magic. The outside world might not even realize something is wrong. Any mortals coming toward Manhattan will slow down so much they won't know what's happening."

"Like flies in amber," Jake murmured.

Annabeth nodded. "We shouldn't expect any help coming in."

Percy turned to the rest of us.

"All right," he said. "We're going to hold Manhattan."

I tugged at my armour. "Um, Percy, Manhattan is huge."

"We are going to hold it," Percy said. "We have to."

"He's right," Annabeth said. "The gods of the wind should keep Kronos's forces away from Olympus by air, so he'll try a ground assault. We have to cut off the entrances to the island."

"They have boats," Michael pointed out.

Percy blinked, as though he'd just been hit by a brilliant idea.

"I'll take care of the boats," Percy said, steely resolve in his voice.

Michael frowned. "How?"

"Just leave it to me," Percy said. "We need to guard the bridges and tunnels. Let's assume they'll try a midtown or downtown assault, at least on their first try. That would be the most direct way to the Empire State Building. Michael, take Apollo's cabin to the Williamsburg Bridge. Katie, Demeter's cabin takes the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel. Grow thorn bushes and poison ivy in the tunnel. Do whatever you have to do, but keep them out of there! Connor, take half of Hermes cabin and cover the Manhattan Bridge. Travis, you take the other half and cover the Brooklyn Bridge. And no stopping for looting or pillaging!"

"Awwww!" the whole Hermes cabin complained.

"Silena, take the Aphrodite crew to the Queens-Midtown Tunnel."

"Oh my gods," one of my sisters said. "Fifth Avenue is so on our way! We could accessorize, and monsters, like, totally hate the smell of Givenchy."

"No delays," Percy said. "Well… the perfume thing, if you think it'll work."

Six Aphrodite girls kissed him on the cheek in excitement.

I almost smiled at the poor guy. But no, still too numb inside.

I began to plan, double-checking to ensure I shut out all my feelings entirely. The enemy force was definitely going to outnumber us. We would have to funnel them into a narrow space to reduce the number that could take us on at any one time. An idea started forming in my head.

"All right, enough!" Percy closed my eyes, trying to think of what I'd forgotten. "The Holland Tunnel. Jake, take the Hephaestus cabin there. Use Greek fire, set traps. Whatever you've got."

Jake grinned. "Gladly. We've got a score to settle. For Beckendorf!"

The whole cabin roared in approval.

Hearing Charlie's name again broke my train of thought, but I whispered under my breath, "For Charlie."

"The 59th Street Bridge," Percy said. "Clarisse—"

He faltered. Clarisse wasn't here. The whole Ares cabin had refused to come.

"We'll take that," Annabeth stepped in.

She turned to her siblings. "Malcolm, take the Athena cabin, activate plan twenty-three along the way, just like I showed you. Hold that position."

"You got it."

"I'll go with Percy," she said.

"Then we'll join you, or we'll go wherever we're needed."

Somebody in the back of the group said, "No detours, you two."

Charlie's death was still too recent for me to have any reaction, but there were some giggles from the others.

Percy ignored them.

"All right," he said. "Keep in touch with cell phones."

"We don't have cell phones," I protested.

Percy reached down, picked up some snoring lady's BlackBerry, and tossed it to me.

"You do now. You all know Annabeth's number, right? If you need us, pick up a random phone and call us. Use it once, drop it, then borrow another one if you have to. That should make it harder for the monsters to zero in on you."

Everyone grinned as though they liked this idea.

Travis cleared his throat. "Uh, if we find a really nice phone-"

"No, you can't keep it," Percy said.

"Aw, man."

"Hold it, Percy," Jake said. "You forgot the Lincoln Tunnel."

Percy bit his lip. I could see his mouth was about to form an impolite word. He was right. A Sherman tank and a hundred monsters were marching through that tunnel right now, and Percy had positioned us everywhere else.

Then a girl's voice called from across the street: "How about you leave that to us?"

They wore white shirts, silvery camouflage pants, and combat boots. They all had swords at their sides, quivers on their backs, and bows at the ready. A pack of white timber wolves milled around their feet, and many of the girls had hunting falcons on their arms.

I clenched my fists.

_Hunters of Artemis._

For a second, I envied them. By renouncing love, they became so much freer. They would not be bound to boys by their feelings. They would never feel the pain of loss that I was feeling now.

But then, it was only human to love and lose. They would never be hurt by losing someone, but they would never be filled with the kind of joy I felt from being with Charlie. It was like, before I realised I loved him, I had never really lived.

The girl in the lead had spiky black hair and a black leather jacket. She wore a silver circlet on her head like a princess's tiara, which didn't match her skull earrings or her Death to Barbie T-shirt showing a little Barbie doll with an arrow through its head.

I glared at her, hating the Hunters even more. My Dad had bought me a Barbie doll without fail every year for my birthday. I'd come to associate him with them.

"Thalia!" Annabeth cried.

The daughter of Zeus grinned. "The Hunters of Artemis, reporting for duty."

Thalia was friendly, but the other Hunters shrunk from us like we had some kind of disease, glancing and pointing in disgust at the boys. Well, at least they didn't shoot any of us, which for them was a pretty warm welcome.

"Where have you been the last year?" Percy asked Thalia. "You've got like twice as many Hunters now!"

She laughed. "Long, long story. I bet my adventures were more dangerous than yours, Jackson."

"Complete lie," Percy said.

"We'll see," she promised. "After this is over, you, Annabeth, and me: cheeseburgers and fries at that hotel on West 57th."

"Le Parker Meridien," Percy said. "You're on. And Thalia, thanks."

She shrugged. "Those monsters won't know what hit them. Hunters, move out!"

She slapped the silver bracelet she wore (which served as a painful reminder of the one I carried), and a telescopic shield deployed from it, with a horrible golden Medusa head moulded in the centre. Everyone backed away in revulsion.

The Hunters took off down the avenue, followed by their wolves and falcons. Though I resented the Hunters, they were excellent fighters. The Lincoln Tunnel would be safe for now.

"Thank the gods," Annabeth said. "But if we don't blockade the rivers from those boats, guarding the bridges and tunnels will be pointless."

"You're right," Percy said.

Percy turned to face us. Everyone looked grim and determined.

"You're the greatest heroes of this millennium," he told us. "It doesn't matter how many monsters come at you. Fight bravely, and we will win."

He raised Riptide and shouted, "FOR OLYMPUS!"

We shouted in response, and our forty voices echoed off the buildings of Midtown. For a moment it sounded brave, but it died quickly in the silence of ten million sleeping New Yorkers.

* * *

The entire cabin squealed in delight as we came upon Fifth Avenue.

"Aphrodite!" I shouted, before they could run off to raid the boutiques. This was the strongest my voice had been in the past three days.

"Alright, this is the plan. There's only a few of us, and you saw how many monsters there were. So this is what we'll do. We need to funnel the monsters so that we don't have to take too many of them on at once. We'll blockade the sides of the tunnel with cars, and put a ton of perfume on them. We'll leave the centre lane open, so the monsters will go through there, because it's easier than cutting through the cars and it won't be covered in perfume. The space will be too narrow for more than two or maybe three of them to go through at a time, so it would make things easier for us."

"So what do we do here?" someone asked.

"Do what you do best, girls. But try to get as much perfume as possible. We can throw the extra bottles at them, which would distract them."

"But we can grab all the cute accessories we want, right?"

I smiled at them. "Go for it. Just remember to leave something to pay."

I know I should have gotten used to it by now, but the squeals of my siblings nearly deafened me. But then again I suppose it's not every day you get exposed to the sound of the entire cabin being let loose on Fifth Avenue.

* * *

It had taken eternity to drag my squealing sisters away from Fifth Avenue and to the Queens-Midtown Tunnel, but somehow we did it.

They had grabbed so many clothes and were burdened with so many bags that they were panting and sweating and complaining as we walked through the August night. I had the nagging suspicion that most of them hadn't paid to full bill for the stuff they took.

But we eventually reached the Tunnel. Or, rather, we reached the spot where we realised the Tunnel was designed in a somewhat annoying fashion. The entrance and the exit tunnels both branched off into a bunch of different, distant streets, so I had no choice but to split us up into two groups, each of which would have to go into the tunnel to protect it. Mitchell (A/N Yes, Piper's friend from _The Lost Hero_) led half the cabin to protect the exit tunnel, I led the other half to protect the entrance.

The lights in the tunnel had all been shut off. Hecate's doing, I guessed; magic was notoriously good at disabling technology. My siblings dumped most of their stuff in some guy's car, and they helped me move the drivers of most of the cars out, lining them up against the side of the tunnel. The older campers drove the cars around, setting up a five-car-long blockade of empty vehicles. We left the engines of the ones in front on, setting the headlights on high beam and illuminating the car-infested darkness of the tunnel. The others applied perfume liberally to the improvised barricade.

It took about ten minutes for us to complete our preparations. When we were done, we assembled behind the barricade.

I looked them over.

If I was a monster in Kronos' army, I'd be pretty surprised to be attacked by the children of Aphrodite. We were clad in red and pink armour, matching our clothes and makeup. It would be a bit like being rushed by Barbies with bronze swords.

But I'd seen each of them fight during capture the flag. We may have been pretty much the least useful in combat among the cabins, but, Mum being Mum, we had the most campers. And at any rate I wasn't going to let anything get in the way of Kronos' just deserts.

"Alright, Aphrodite. It's all come down to this. All the capture-the-flag games, the boring sword-fighting lessons, everything. We will stand and fight here. And we will protect Olympus. Just stick to the plan and everything will work out."

I pointed my sword skyward.

"APHRODITE!"

"APHRODITE!" my siblings cheered.

But as I turned around to face the tunnel, I heard them chattering among themselves. I was about to turn around and ask them what was wrong when I heard one of my sisters counting down.

"Three, two, one," she said.

"FOR CHARLIE!" they shouted.

Of course, they knew my primary motivation for being here.

I whirled around, blinking back tears, and then surged towards them, wrapping as many of them as I could in a bear hug.

"Thanks, girls," I whispered to them.

I can't say how much it meant to me, to have my siblings' support in fighting Kronos for Charlie's sake.

They hugged back.

We stood like this for about half a minute, before assuming our positions.

We clustered at the end of our barricade closer to the city. Some of us crouched on the cars that lined the sides, holding our swords at the ready. The rest of us stood at the opening in the centre of the barricade. I stood right in the middle.

It didn't take long for the sound of _dracanae _hissing to fill the tunnel, echoing through it. I glimpsed the faint glow of torchlight in the distance.

I set my jaw.

It was time.

_Kronos will pay. For Charlie._

Slowly, I let some of my emotions trickle through. I allowed myself to feel anger at Charlie's death, hatred of Kronos, determination to stop him, and a firm resolution to bring him to justice, to redeem myself for what I had done, and to make him feel every ounce of pain he'd put me through,.

The hellhounds came first. They bounded right over the barricades, wheeling to face us. We were flanked, but luckily, one of my siblings on each side maintained enough composure to open and hurl a bottle of perfume at the hellhound attacking her side, as though it was a hand grenades. The hellhounds crashed to the ground, raking themselves with their own claws, trying to get the scent out of their fur. The others recovered quickly enough to vaporise them with their swords.

Then came the giants. There were five of them, big, hulking brutes, clad in full giant-sized battle armour, leading Kronos' forces down the tunnel. They carried huge, nasty bronze battle-axes and torches, illuminating the path ahead of them. Some of the light from their torches revealed the ranks of hissing _dracanae_ behind them, advancing in a shield wall formation, spears pointed forward.

I hadn't planned on running into the giants. In fact, they would easily push the barricade out of the way and ruin the entire plan.

"Aphrodite!" I ordered, moving deeper into the tunnel, to the front of our barricade.

"Follow me! And bring your perfume. When I give the signal, start throwing perfume at the giants. I'll take them out while they're distracted!"

Everyone nodded. They pulled out their bottles of perfume and opened them.

The giants drew closer, entering the throwing range of my siblings.

"NOW!" I screamed, rushing forward. One girl against five giants.

My siblings were like an artillery battery. They flung their perfume at the giants, splattering them with it. They roared in indignation, scrubbing themselves and trying to get it off them.

I didn't slow down.

"FOR CHARLIE!" I screamed, as I stabbed into a gap in the armour of one, and turned and did the same to the other. The giants were thus reduced to Givenchy-scented piles of dust.

There were now two giants on my right, and one giant on my left, all of which were still preoccupied with scratching the perfume off their skin.

I went right, as my siblings flung another barrage of perfume. This time, most of it hit the bristly shield wall of _dracanae_, disrupting their formation and preventing them from attacking me as I took out the other two giants.

I ran across the tunnel and took down the last one.

My siblings were about to launch another volley of perfume, but I shouted "STOP!"

I withdrew to our end of the barricade, as the _dracanae_ recovered.

"Let them come in to the chokepoint. Then splash them with perfume, and aim for the exposed parts."

The others nodded, and everyone withdrew to their original positions.

As the _dracanae_ moved into the headlights, I counted them. There were three ranks of ten, making thirty.

Their hissing grew in intensity as they approached the cars, and they funnelled themselves into a narrow column, as planned.

As the column approached us, my siblings splashed the leaders with perfume. They would hiss and scream, and I would jab them in the face or some other exposed part, reducing them to dust.

The _dracanae _weren't dumb. They realised our plan after I killed five of them, and the rest of them retreated. We managed to splash one more with perfume, allowing me to kill it, but the rest retreated to safety, out of the barricade, hissing and snarling.

I frowned. We had to kill these creatures. But they knew they would lose if they attacked, and I wasn't so sure we could win if we attacked.

But we had no choice.

I grabbed a bottle of perfume.

"Alright, girls," I said, unscrewing the top, "New plan. We need to kill them all, so throw everything you've got at them, then charge."

Everyone else nodded, and my siblings readied themselves. Each one of them held a bottle of perfume in one hand and a sword in another.

I turned to the _dracanae_, who were backing away in fear, still hissing and snarling.

"APHRODITE!" I yelled, charging.

My siblings had no qualms about traversing the cars, so unlike the _dracanae_, we surged towards our opponents as a wave of pink, red, bronze and perfume, instead of a column.

The _dracanae_, who hadn't really regrouped yet, had their pseudo-formation shattered again by incoming perfume. My siblings closed in, striking the exposed points on their opponents' armour. This was fairly easy, since the _dracanae _were freaked out by the perfume. But they were still far better fighters than we were. Many times I saw my siblings stumbling back from being hit by our opponents.

But, after a few minutes of intense fighting, the _dracanae_ were all dead. I lowered my weapon, panting heavily while amidst heaps of designer-perfume-scented dust. The alcohol in the perfume burnt my wounds, but I shrugged it off.

Everyone held their bottles of perfume at the ready, gazing into the darkness of the tunnel expectantly.

Nothing.

I thrust my blade into the air, smiling triumphantly.

"APHRODITE!"

"APHRODITE!" the rest of them cheered.

I felt pretty proud of myself. Sure, I hadn't even encountered Kronos himself, but I had a feeling that what we did here had put a sizable dent in Kronos' forces. And the battle was far from over, right? I was going to make him pay.

I looked around. Everyone had been wounded, but no-one had been seriously hurt. Not bad for a bunch of girls with designer perfume up against five giants and thirty snake women.

Suddenly, the sharp sound of cruel laughter cut through my thoughts.

_I'm going to pay, am I?_

A chill ran down my spine.

_K-Kronos?_

He laughed again, and my blood turned to icy acid.

He had been able to hear my thoughts all along. I thought he was only gathering information from my telling him things, but he could read the thoughts I didn't broadcast too. I had a hunch this meant he shared my senses.

_Indeed I do, Silena Beauregard. I see everything you see, hear everything you hear, feel everything you feel._

I bit my lip, trying to think of a solution. I couldn't just chuck the bracelet away. It would come back.

_And that's the beauty of it, my dear Silena!_

I gnashedmy teeth in frustration. He had a point. There was no way out.

_You monster!_

Kronos cackled again.

_By the way, don't things feel a little _too_ easy?_

I paled. Of course. Kronos wouldn't want me dead. We would have encountered the smallest force.

_Exactly! So I wonder how Mitchell must be handling things._

I turned as white as a sheet.

"Quick! Everyone! To the other tunnel!" I cried.

My voice was filled with such fear and urgency that the others didn't even ask questions. They just moved.

The sounds of combat grew louder as we ran into the exit tunnel, while I silently cursed the moron who designed the whole thing.

Two of my sisters lay on the ground, both of them out cold.

Ahead of them, my siblings hurled perfume at hellhounds as they bounded over the barricade of cars. Behind the cars was a swarm of monsters, at least fifty of them, telkhines and _dracanae_. The huge piles of dust lying around told me that there had been more.

Some of the cars had been removed from the barricade and lay, strewn about, on their side or top. I guessed that some of that dust had once been giants.

Two of my siblings were throwing perfume at the monsters at the chokepoint, and one more was striking the perfume-disabled monsters down, but there were just so many of them. The rest of my siblings were fighting off the hellhounds, but as I watched, one of my sisters swung her blade at one of the demonic creatures and missed. The hellhound bounded past her and slammed into the trio at the chokepoint. One of the three killed the hellhound, but the monsters they had formerly been fighting off spilled through.

I drew my sword and charged again.

"APHRODITE!"

My half of the cabin hurled perfume, dazing the monsters, and we followed up with our swords, cutting them down.

We ran over the cars, chucking perfume like maniacs, and tore through the hordes of monsters on the other side of the barricade. Mitchell's team recovered, joining our charge. And in a surge of designer perfumes and Celestial bronze, the army of monsters was reduced to dust.

Mitchell walked up to me as I leaned against the wall, panting heavily. I had driven my sword, point-down, into the tarmac, and rested my weight on it.

"There were at least a hundred of them. Your plan worked, until the giants started flipping the cars. We charged them, but Drew (A/N Yes, _that_ Drew) got knocked out. Then when we killed all the giants and pulled back, the hellhounds started jumping over. They got Lacy (A/N Piper's other friend in _The Lost Hero_).

I nodded, still exhausted. Under other circumstances, I would have felt a stab of sadistic pleasure at Drew's misfortune, but this was war. Our lives were in danger. We couldn't afford to hold petty grudges.

"Get everyone back to the Plaza Hotel," I ordered.

Mitchell nodded.

_Not bad_, Kronos invaded my thoughts again.

_Oh, and, just to put a few more deaths on your conscience, we know that Percy Jackson and Annabeth Chase are travelling together, and they're the only ones who can be summoned for support, since Chase is the only one with a mobile phone of her own. Next to you, the Apollo cabin is the weakest. My main army is already advancing down the Williamsburg Bridge. They'll ask those two for help, of course. So maybe I'll pay Jackson a special visit._

A lump formed in my throat.

"No," I whispered.

_Oh, yes. And one more thing. We have a certain Lydian drakon in our possession, one destined to meet its defeat at the hand of a child of Ares. Incidentally, thanks to you, I know that your army happens to currently have a shortage of children of Ares. And since prophecies are never wrong, I wonder what will happen if I unleash this particular drakon on your friends?_

It wasn't enough for him to use me to kill Charlie. He was going to put the blood of the entire camp on my hands.

"Silena!" Mitchell called. The rest of the cabin was already walking out of the tunnel.

I blinked back angry tears.

_Why are you telling me this?_ I thought to him, as I ran to join my siblings.

_Consider it a little thank-you gift from me. You may consider it wise not to face the drakon, Silena Beauregard, and instead run as far as your pretty little legs can carry you._

My features hardened into a snarl.

_I'll kill you, Kronos!_

Kronos laughed again, as I trailed behind the others.

_I'm afraid not, Silena. One does not simply kill the Lord of the Titans._

_ And, by the way, the real reason I'm telling you all this? I like to see you suffer._

I clenched my fists as anger welled within me. But I was filled with helplessness and despair. Kronos was right. There was no way to stop his plans.

I fought back tears as we trudged on to the Plaza Hotel, carrying our wounded.

* * *

As we entered the hotel, Blackjack swooped down and trotted in behind us, carrying Annabeth by her armour straps.

When I saw her, my face turned as pale as hers. Her shirt was drenched in blood, and the skin around the deep wound on her arm had turned a toxic shade of green.

Seeing her like this reminded me of everything Kronos had told me. How this was my fault. How he would unleash the Lydian drakon on them. How they would be unable to defeat it. And how that would be my fault too.

I collapsed on my knees, bursting into tears.

It was a while before my siblings started trying to comfort me, but I brushed them away, struggling unsteadily to my feet, and wiping the tears from my eyes.

I walked to the terrace, where they had laid Annabeth on a lounge chair. Her eyes were shut.

I realised some of my siblings had followed me.

"I-It's alright," I told them, "Go get some rest."

I knelt down next to her, as Jake, Charlie's successor, tore a strip of cloth from the curtains. I took it and tied a bandage around Annabeth's arm.

"Percy…" she murmured.

She reached out to grab something with her hand. I let her take mine, and she smiled contentedly.

I noticed her shivering, and told Jake to get her some blankets, while I gazed at her.

"I'm sorry," I whispered.

Silently, I cursed Kronos. He had used me to do this to her, just like he had used me to cause Charlie's death. And I could only hope that Percy had survived.

"How do I contact Percy?" I asked Annabeth. She had recovered somewhat; her eyes were now open.

She looked relieved as she rattled off a string of numbers. I grabbed a phone from a sleeping businessman and dialled the number, desperately hoping he would pick up. I wasn't sure I could cope with the guilt of hurting another one of my friends.

Thankfully, he did.

"Percy? Plaza Hotel. You'd better come quickly and bring a healer from Apollo's cabin. It's…it's Annabeth."

He hung up immediately.

* * *

When Percy showed up, I was wiping Annabeth's forehead with a cool cloth, thinking about what Kronos had said. There was no changing Clarisse's mind. Maybe she would come if I told her about what Kronos made me do. But then there was the extremely high chance of her thinking me mad.

Convincing Clarisse would win me the rest of the Ares cabin. But if I couldn't convince Clarisse…

A very sneaky plan started forming in my head, as Percy and Will from the Apollo cabin pushed through a crowd of Athena kids who had gathered around her.

Will unwrapped Annabeth's bandages to examine the wound, and I gagged. The bleeding had stopped, but the parts where her skin turned green looked even nastier.

"Annabeth..." he choked up.

"Poison on the dagger," she mumbled. "Pretty stupid of me, huh?"

Will exhaled with relief. "It's not so bad, Annabeth. A few more minutes and we would've been in trouble, but the venom hasn't gotten past the shoulder yet. Just lie still. Somebody hand me some nectar."

Percy grabbed a canteen. Will cleaned out the wound with the godly drink while Percy held Annabeth's hand.

"Ow," she said. "Ow, ow!" She gripped Percy's fingers so tight they turned purple, but she stayed still, like Will asked. I muttered words of encouragement, my thoughts still mainly on ironing out the crinkles in my plan. Will put some silver paste over the wound and hummed words in Ancient Greek – a hymn to Apollo. Then he applied fresh bandages and stood up shakily.

The healing must've taken a lot of his energy. He looked almost as pale as Annabeth.

"That should do it," he said. "But we're going to need some mortal supplies."

He grabbed a piece of hotel stationery, jotted down some notes, and handed it to one of the Athena guys. "There's a Duane Reade on Fifth. Normally I would never steal—"

"I would," Travis volunteered.

Will glared at him. "Leave cash or drachmas to pay, whatever you've got, but this is an emergency. I've got a feeling we're going to have a lot more people to treat."

I thought of all the injuries my siblings had sustained.

_And it's going to get worse. And it'll be all because of me._

"Come on, guys," Travis said. "Let's give Annabeth some space. We've got a drugstore to raid...I mean, visit."

The others left, leaving Annabeth, Percy and me alone on the terrace.

I pressed a cool cloth to Annabeth's forehead. "This is all my fault."

"No," Annabeth said weakly. "Silena, how is it your fault?"

I looked down, unable to meet their eyes.

_You have no idea_.

"I've never been any good at camp," I murmured. "Not like you or Percy. If I was a better fighter..."

My lip quivered. For a second I was afraid of breaking and telling them, but they'd just think I was crazy.

"You're a great camper," Percy told me. "You're the best pegasus rider we have. And you get along with people. Believe me, anyone who can make friends with Clarisse has talent."

Suddenly, it was like someone flipped a light switch in my brain. I had already thought out the plan. All I needed was a way back.

"That's it! We need the Ares cabin."

I couldn't exactly talk about the drakon, but even without having to deal with it, anyone could tell that we were being badly beaten, and sorely in need of the camp's best warriors.

"I can talk to Clarisse. I _know_ I can convince her to help us."

"Whoa, Silena. Even if you could get off the island, Clarisse is pretty stubborn. Once she gets angry—"

"Please," I said. "I can take a pegasus. I _know_ I can make it back to camp. Let me try."

"All right," he told me. "I can't think of anybody better to try."

I threw my arms around him, then I realised Annabeth was there. I pushed back awkwardly, glancing at her.

"Um, sorry. Thank you, Percy! I won't let you down!"

I hurried out of the building, and grabbed a pegasus. Then, just like that, I was off.

Getting off the island was easy. The wind spirits gave me a boost out, so I evaded Kronos' aerial forces.

I flew through the night, trying desperately not to think about my plan. Maybe if I pushed it far enough to the back of my mind, Kronos wouldn't be able to read it.

Sure enough, when he contacted me, I was already halfway across Long Island.

_Running away, are we? A wise choice, daughter of Aphrodite. Oh well, I don't need you to kill your friends anyway._

I grimaced, but kept my mind vacant.

_Keep in touch. Oh wait, you don't have a choice._

He cackled again.

_I'll keep you posted on how your friends die._

Then, silence.

I waited five minutes before thinking back, even though I knew he wouldn't hear me, _Not if I can help it._

* * *

I watched from the shadows as Chris and Clarisse walked off on patrol. They sounded like they were arguing, but I couldn't make out the exact words. It wouldn't matter, anyway.

The rest of the Ares cabin was everywhere but the cabin. They basically had the whole camp to themselves, and were throwing a wild, camp-wide, Ares-only party.

I waited a few minutes for them to get far away, then slipped into the cabin, and picked my way through the cabin's trash to her bunk. The wall behind it was decorated with pictures of Chris. I felt a sharp pang of pain as I realised how similar it was, in that respect, to my own bunk.

_Charlie_, I thought, shedding a single tear.

My eyes fell on another picture, of Chris, Clarisse, Charlie and I hanging out.

"I'm sorry, Clarisse," I told the picture, as I pulled her armour out from a closet.

I quickly got dressed, then twirled her electric spear about.

I sighed heavily. This was how Kronos would pay for Charlie. I was going to kill his drakon, which he was so certain would destroy us all. That arrogant, sadistic, manipulative traitor would have his comeuppance at the hands of the girl he tried to use to bring down Camp Half-Blood.

I caused Charlie's death, and I was going to make it right.

I walked out of the cabin, and shouted, in a voice as low and Clarisse-like as I could manage, "ARES!"

Everyone turned to look at me.

I took a deep breath. It was time to give a Clarisse-y speech.

"All the other campers are losers. But we already knew that, didn't we?"

"YEAH!"

"Well, guess what? Kronos has unleashed a drakon on them. And the drakon can only killed by a child of Ares. So we're all going down to Manhattan to save their sorry butts, and prove, once and for all, which cabin is the best!"

"YEAH!"

"Come on, Ares!"

"ARES! ARES!"

The campers, all pumped up at the prospect of fighting a drakon that one of them was destined to kill, were surprisingly quick to get ready. None of them questioned Chris' absence, which I found weird. Younger siblings normally pestered you incessantly about your love life. I winced inwardly as I inadvertently called to mind my own siblings' teasing me about Charlie. But I suppose Clarisse commanded a lot more fear and respect than the average big sister.

They piled into their chariots, and got into formation around mine.

I pointed Clarisse's electric spear towards New York.

"ARES!" my mouth cried, as the others echoed me.

_Charlie_, my heart cheered.

_That Lydian drakon is going down._

_Kronos will pay._

**A/N And we all know what happened after that.**

**Next up, Annabeth Chase and the Son of Poseidon.**


	7. Annabeth Chase and the Son of Poseidon

Annabeth Chase and the Son of Poseidon

**A/N Adapted from the diary of Ms Annabeth Chase, who has requested that I publish this as the apologia for her behaviour around Mstr Perseus Jackson. Not the most conventionally fluffy thing you could find, but I found it sweet and romantic in a deeper, more sublime fashion. My favourite of these tales so far, including the next few that Mstrs Thomas and Dante Trent have given me that I haven't had the opportunity to talk about.**

I lay awake, as the engine of the Argo II droned in the background, my mind far too choked with thoughts for me to fall asleep.

It wasn't just me being excited over seeing Percy again. In fact, we'd pretty much settled back into our regular routine: we were going on adventures where we vaporised monsters and kissed, like we did quite a lot while we were dating. No, it wasn't that, though it was related.

Shortly after Percy and I officially became a couple, I'd run into what I'd later come to term _the Problem_. Well, basically, Percy's always been cute and sweet, but when we started dating…well, let's just say I never knew he had such an intensely romantic side. He always carried my stuff, held the door, stood in front whenever anything threatened us during an adventure, and always, always had protecting me as his first priority.

I'd written it off at first as him making up for my taking Ethan's knife for him during the Battle of Manhattan, but I soon realised that wasn't it. He was genuinely trying to be a traditional, gentlemanly, chivalrous boyfriend to me.

And the scary thing was, even though I'd wanted to hate it, even though I'd wanted to scream that I could take care of myself, I found myself absolutely loving it. When he performed any of the sweet, protective, classic romantic gestures that you'd imagine guys in black-and-white films doing, my heart would melt, and, if the circumstances permitted it, I'd lunge straight for his lips. I'd always want to just curl up in his arms, letting him hold me and keep me safe and sound, as he'd whisper into my ear, "I'll never let you go". And when he did, I'd know that I'd be alright. That no-one could hurt me now, safe in the arms of my boyfriend, my hero, my everything: my Percy.

I found my feelings for him incredibly strong, even before his absence intensified them and made them so painfully keen. Sometimes it felt like I needed to be with him as much as I needed to drink water. I'd just want to be wherever he was, always there to take care of him, no matter what the cost. When I was around him, I'd always have the strangest urge to fuss over him like I was his Mum, and to give him whatever he wanted or needed; a plan of attack, a nugget of information, a swig of nectar, a square of ambrosia, a touch, a kiss. I would do anything he asked me to. Anything for him.

Also, in the four months we'd dated, I'd spent more time on my appearance than in the rest of my life. He made me want to paint my nails and wear perfume. In fact, I'd bought all of that stuff. Dresses, high heels, makeup, perfume with names that Percy would stumble over like the kelp-head he is, and so forth. Although I only wore those things when we went on formal dates, my everyday wardrobe had changed too. I now wore skirts half the time when I went out to meet him, and the other half was split evenly between jeans and shorts (and I'll admit I sometimes tried a little bit of makeup too).

And when I did doll myself up all the way, it was worth it. Percy's eyes would light up and he'd suck in his breath when he saw me, and then, clearly unable to control himself, he'd throw his arms around me, tell me how lucky he was to have me, and give me a long, passionate kiss. The sort that he gave me all too frequently. The sort that made my pain, fear and anger all melt away, just like that. The sort that stopped my brain from working. The sort that filled my heart to bursting with pure, ecstatic joy. And in that moment, I'd think that all that stuff was completely worth it.

In other words, he made me want to act like a girl.

I thought back to our little adventure with Frank. Percy had been so darn protective of me. I think I was supposed to have gotten angry at this, but for some reason all I felt was the overpowering desire to kiss him repeatedly. And the line of the Prophecy that disturbed me the most: _Wisdom's daughter walks _alone. Whenever I heard it, my heart would scream, "_I don't _want_ to walk alone! I want to be together with Percy! All the time! Forever!_" I tried to blame it all on me missing him, but I knew it was really the Problem.

_ Why am I always so weak around that son of Poseidon? _I asked myself angrily.

Percy kept turning my knees to jelly. I'd try to _act_ strong, especially in front of Percy, but I was beginning to realise I was really acting in front of_ myself_, trying to silence the parts of me that wanted to let me be the princess and Percy the knight in shining armour.

I sighed, unsure of my feelings. Anger, definitely, but who was I angry at? Was it Percy? Was it myself? Or was it at the world, for wanting me to be strong and independent when I wanted to melt into Percy's embrace?

And at the same time, simply thinking about him made my heart ache for his touch, his embrace, his warmth…oh Hades, I just wanted _him_. No, _needed _him. I'd finally gotten him back after going so long without him, and I was dreadfully afraid that he might slip out of my fingertips again. I'd missed him so much; every day without him was like a year without rain. And now that the drought had finally come to an end, I wanted to get as much of him as possible.

And then I felt angry at myself for needing him. Once again, I forced myself to face up to the fact that my pining for him was not merely the result of our separation. It was a crazy, passionate wish: to throw myself so deeply into him that it'd be impossible for us to be torn apart.

Most of the time, I would ignore it. He was my boyfriend, and that was that. But it was times like this that, maybe, just for a moment, my worries about the Problem would get the better of me, and I'd find myself considering the possibility that the pain was more trouble than love was worth. Why should I give myself completely to him? Why should I make myself dependent on him? Why should I sacrifice my freedom and bind myself to him? I could handle things by myself, after all.

"_But isn't that what love is?_" a little voice inside my head would ask.

I sighed again and got up. Whenever this happened, I'd try to lock up my heart. I'd decide to put my foot down and tell him that chivalry was dead, and that I didn't need a hero. But then every time he smiled, I'd let him again. The implications of that line of thought would hit me. We were together. He was _mine_. I loved him. He loved me. How could I consider throwing that away for something like this?

Honestly, my heart still thirsted far too much for Percy to care about this internal debate about strength and the nature of love. I just wanted to spend some time with my boyfriend.

* * *

I gingerly shut the door behind me as I tiptoed into Percy's room.

I studied his features, familiar, yet still handsome as ever, as I stood over his berth, watching him sleep. Though I'd realised it in the stables, I was still surprised when I was reminded once more of how long I'd known that face for.

His jet-black hair was even more tousled and messy than normal, and he snored gently, as a small pool of saliva collected beneath the corner of his mouth. This called to mind the first time we'd met, bringing a smile to my lips. _You drool in your sleep_, I'd said to him.

"Percy," I whispered. It was both a semi-voluntary utterance of tenderness and a wake-up call.

Percy slowly opened his eyes. I had to bite my lip as his emerald orbs sparkled in the moonlight. There was stronger magic in there than Hecate could ever work. He'd always get me with those green eyes as the lights go down, and I'd be unable to resist his lips.

Confusion flickered across his face for a second. With a start, I remembered one of the stories he'd told me, another time when he'd awoken after hearing my voice. When he'd bathed in the River Styx, of all the memories and scenes that flashed through his mind, the one with me in it was the last one. It had occurred just before he emerged from the River, just when he thought he was about to lose himself to it and disintegrate. It was also the longest and most detailed.

Emotions swelled within me as I was reminded, once more, of the implications: I was more important to him than anything else in his life. His entire _person_ was ultimately directed towards me. I was everything to him. Every breath of his lungs, every beat of his heart, every fibre of his being, every moment of his life, all of it, for me.

"Wh-what's going on?" he asked, interrupting my ruminations. "Are we there?"

"No," I said, trying to be quiet. "It's the middle of the night."

"You mean…"

His eyes had a panicky light in them as he examined himself, like he'd just realised his appearance was in a state that was absolutely unpresentable, especially to his girlfriend.

"You sneaked into my cabin?"

I rolled my eyes. Percy still acted like a silly twelve-year-old sometimes. I found it a little annoying but simultaneously immensely endearing.

"Percy, you'll be seventeen in two months. You can't seriously be worried about getting into trouble with Coach Hedge."

Once again, I was reminded of how long I'd known him.

"Uh, have you seen his baseball bat?"

"Besides, Seaweed Brain, I just thought we could take a walk," I continued, ignoring him. "We haven't had any time to be together alone."

Well, we'd had lots of opportunities to smooch and cuddle while we were looking for tar with Frank, but it wasn't the same as being all by ourselves.

"I want to show you something – my favourite place aboard the ship."

The stables. Just the two of us, and the memories of the years that we'd known each other for.

"Can I, you know, brush my teeth first?"

"You'd better," I smirked. "Because I'm not kissing you until you do."

Well, actually, I wouldn't mind. But still, you should never pass up a chance to enforce hygiene on boys.

"And brush your hair while you're at it."

* * *

We crept downstairs to the second deck. I led him past the engine room, which was basically a huge mess of mechanical components. Even with my ADHD, Leo's layout choices grated on my nerves.

"How does that thing even work?" Percy asked.

"No idea," I said. "And I'm the only one besides Leo who can operate it."

"That's reassuring."

"It should be fine. It's only threatened to blow up once."

"You're kidding, I hope."

I smiled. "Come on."

We passed the supply rooms and the armoury, finally coming to the wooden double doors that led to the stable. As expected, when I reached for the door, Percy reached for it too, and helped me pull it further open. I chewed my lip in discomfort as I led him in. I still wasn't sure how to feel about that. But I brushed the Problem aside. I was here to spend some time with my boyfriend.

The scent of fresh hay and wool blankets washed over us. I smiled at the two empty cages against the right wall, big enough for large zoo animals. They always reminded me of the truck Percy and I had taken when we were twelve.

Below the glass pegasus doors, the night landscape whisked past us – dark countryside crisscrossed with threads of light.

"A glass-bottomed boat?" Percy asked.

I grabbed a blanket from the nearest stable gate and spread it across part of the glass floor. "Sit with me."

We relaxed on the blanket, like we were on one of those many romantic picnics Percy took me on, and watched the world go by below, enshrouded in the shadows of the night.

"Leo built the stables so pegasi could come and go easily," I explained. "Only he didn't realize that pegasi prefer to roam free, so the stables are always empty."

"What do you mean, come and go easily?" he asked. "Wouldn't a pegasus have to make it down two flights of stairs?"

I rapped my knuckles on the glass. "These are bay doors, like on a bomber."

Percy gulped. "You mean we're sitting on doors? What if they opened?"

"I suppose we'd fall to our deaths. But they won't open. Most likely."

"Great."

I laughed.

We sat, enjoying each other's presence and observing the landscape for a short while.

"You know why I like it here?" I said, after less than half a minute. "It's not just the view. What does this place remind you of?"

Percy looked around, furrowing his eyebrows as he racked his kelp-clogged brains.

"That zoo truck," he decided, eventually. "The one we took to Las Vegas."

I smiled at him. He'd remembered. Percy was an amazing boyfriend, but he was still a bit of a goofball. An endearing, adorable goofball, but still a goofball. He was always sweet and romantic, but he also kept forgetting our anniversaries and precious moments. I was glad he'd remembered this one.

"That was so long ago," Percy said. "We were in bad shape, struggling to get across the country to find that stupid lightning bolt, trapped in a truck with a bunch of mistreated animals. How can you be nostalgic for that?"

"Because, Seaweed Brain, it's the first time we really talked, you and me. I told you about my family, and…"

I took out my camp necklace, strung with Dad's college ring and a colourful clay bead for each year at Camp Half-Blood. I'd been there for far longer than Percy had, but the last five, the ones for every year since I met him, were inscribed with images representing the adventures that Percy and I went together on. Now there was something else on the leather cord: a red coral pendant Percy had given me when we had started dating. He'd brought it from his father's palace at the bottom of the sea.

All those years we'd spent together, slowly growing closer; all of it, every breath, every hour had come to this: the two of us, together, at last. Time had finally brought his heart to me, and mine to him. And yet it still felt like we were just getting started. Like this was only the beginning.

"And," I continued, "it reminds me how long we've known each other. We were _twelve_, Percy. Can you believe that?"

"No," he admitted. "So…you knew you liked me from that moment?"

I smirked. "I hated you at first."

Nonsense. I'd been intrigued in the possibility of him accompanying me on my long-awaited quest literally as soon as I met him, and I can't deny that he held some degree of emotional fascination for me from the moment I laid eyes on him.

"You annoyed me."

He still did. But I'd come to find it cute.

"Then I tolerated you for a few years."

Completely untrue, and both of us knew it. He had been my best friend since that summer when we met. And my emotional interest in him had blossomed into a full-blown crush during our first adventure together.

"Then—"

I fell for him. Hard. So lost in love that the Problem came up, though I didn't realise it until we started dating. I mean, even our first kiss, in Mt St Helen's, reflected it. He'd offered to hold the telkhines off and let me escape. I'd been so worried about leaving him, so worried about him getting hurt. And then I'd kissed him. Faced with the possibility of never seeing him again, I'd been forced to admit that my crush had grown into something else altogether, something far greater. That I was desperately wishing for what we had to become so much more.

"Okay, fine."

I ignored the Problem, and leaned over to kiss my boyfriend: a good, proper kiss, a boy and a girl, head over heels in love, all alone in a special place. Though we'd done this a million times, my skin still tingled with electricity.

I pulled away after a long while. "I missed you, Percy."

Understatement. I didn't know how I'd survived his absence. The days I was apart from him, it was like I was wandering alone in a vast, empty, desert, slowly dying of thirst, wanting him, no, _needing_ him by my side. Even before he vanished, I thought about him every morning when I opened my eyes, every evening when I turned out the lights, every second, every day of my life. Percy was on my mind all the time. And when he had been taken away from me, my thoughts of him didn't diminish in frequency. They just became painful longings that I knew could never be satisfied.

Sometimes I'd go over to his house or his cabin and sleep in his bed and steal his clothes, just to be surrounded by his scent once more, to have a concrete reminder of what it was like to be with him. Gods, it made me sound like some obsessive, possessive stalker-psycho girl with low self-esteem, but I couldn't fight my feelings. That was the only time I could feel remotely comfortable or at peace while he was gone.

And sometimes, sleeping where he slept so often, inhaling that familiar scent of the sea, nearly able to taste the salt on his lips which I'd gotten so familiar with, I'd dream of Percy, his silliness, his strength, his protectiveness, his warmth, his sweetness…_him_. _Being_ with him. Sometimes it would seem so real that I would be filled with the same ecstasy that I was when I actually reunited with him. And then I'd wake up, and look around, and see that he wasn't really there. And I'd begin to sob, shedding miserable, heartbroken tears, tears of anguish and sorrow. I'd wish he would drop everything, and run to my side, hold me, kiss me, and take away the pain, like he always did whenever he saw me upset, but I'd know that he was gone, and that there was nothing I could do about it.

We looked into each other's eyes. The light in his told me that this was one of those rare occasions where he was thinking. Most of the time he left the brainwork to me.

I thought of how Percy must have coped without me. He'd mentioned how his only memory after being snatched away by Hera was of me. How the only way he'd been able to carry on was by thinking of me. Right then, I'd wanted to cry, to run up to him, throw my arms around him, and kiss him again and again. I was, once more, acutely reminded of how much I meant to him. How much he relied on me to keep himself going.

I recalled all the time we spent together when we were dating. Whenever I touched him, I could literally feel the tension in his muscles dissolving, like he belonged with me, like I set him at complete ease, and took all his pain and problems away. And I'd never seen him fight more ferociously than when he was trying to keep me out of harm's way. His eyes would be filled with steel and fire, like, _When I said I was going to protect you, I _meant _it_. And when the storm had blown over, when all our enemies were dead or unconscious, he'd hold me and kiss me so tenderly it was impossible to believe this was the same Percy that had just done all_ that_.

He loved me. I loved him. And it was this love that gave him strength.

_I _gave him strength.

Thoughts began taking shape in my head. Was it really a one-way street? Was it really weakness that I felt around him? If Percy did all the fighting and took all the hits for me, would I be left standing around uselessly? Was there really anything so wrong with giving in to him, and giving in to myself, by just being a girl? I had been afraid so, but I was starting to think otherwise.

"Annabeth," he said hesitantly, "in New Rome, demigods can live their whole lives in peace."

_Oh no._

And then, there was _that_ problem. After finally discovering where he was, I'd been plagued with anxiety, worried that he might have forgotten where he belonged. Worried that he might have forgotten _me_. I was afraid that I'd find him, only to lose his heart. Percy talking about Rome didn't exactly help.

"Reyna explained it to me. But, Percy, you belong at Camp Half-Blood. That other life—"

"I know," Percy said. "But while I was there, I saw so many demigods living without fear: kids going to college, couples getting married and raising families. There's nothing like that at Camp Half-Blood. I kept thinking about you and me…and maybe someday when this war with the giants is over…"

A furious, intense blush came to my cheeks.

"Oh," I said in a small voice.

He'd basically just asked me to _marry_ him.

I pictured this, the two of us together in New Rome. It was like a movie scene: I'd be cradling our baby in my arms, and he'd have just come home from doing…well, whatever it was he did to earn our keep in the city. I'd kiss him to welcome him home, then he'd take the baby from me, toss him as he giggled and let him ride on his shoulders. (A/N This particular bit inspired a later one-shot, _Happily Ever After_. You're welcome to check it out)

_That's _the way it should be.

Then I thought back to the battle Percy had described. I imagined us as one of the couples in the city. A monster would smash down the door. I'd be holding the baby, backing into the wall, and Percy would be between us and the threat, heroically facing the thing that dared menace his family, the same way he'd heroically face anything that dared menace his girlfriend.

And when the danger had passed, I'd dress his wounds, like I had helped Chiron do when I first met him, and so many other times too. And then I'd kiss him, and his eyes would light up, as if that had made all the pain worth it.

The Problem flared up again, but I shut it down. Gods, it made me sound so _weak_, but I just found this scene _so_ – _freaking_ – _sweet_. I wanted to grow old together with Percy, just like that. To play our roles forever: boyfriend and girlfriend, husband and wife, father and mother.

And, in that instant, it all became clear. What I felt around Percy wasn't _weakness_. Being a girl wasn't about _weakness_. Letting him protect me wasn't _weakness_. Percy needed me as much as I needed him. We depended on each other. Just in different ways.

We gave reason and meaning to each other's lives. He lived to love me, and I lived to love him. He loved me by protecting me, throwing himself in front of anything that could hurt me, and I loved him by caring for him, soothing him and giving him strength through my touches and kisses. And there wasn't any less courage, strength or sacrifice in my loving Percy that way. I was putting myself out on the line, letting my walls come down, falling back into his arms and trusting him to be there to catch me, devoting myself completely to him. By loving him, I opened myself to his pain. I swore to always be by his side, no matter what the cost. I vowed to be his, and his alone, forever.

And not just that; there were so many other things he relied on me for. I kept his feet on the ground, handled intellectual problems, and had a plethora of useful skills that he didn't. We complemented each other, like pieces of a puzzle; always better together. A team, as Percy had told me quite a few times, and not just when it came to questing and fighting.

I finally recognised the Problem for what it really was: hubris, my fatal flaw. I _couldn't_ do everything by myself. I _needed_ Percy, as much as he needed me. My pride kept telling me I was better than everyone than everything, that I needed to prove it to the world, and that I couldn't just let go and let Percy love me. _Percy_, who had told me again and again how perfect I was.

_As long as we're together, nothing even matters, but the two of us. Forget about how the world sees me. It all stops when he puts his arms around me anyway._

At long last, I had finally made peace with that thought.

And, just like that, the Problem vanished – forever. I resolved to be Percy's girl; to let him take my hits for me, protect me from harm, and sacrifice himself for me, like a proper boyfriend should, and to let him touch me, and hold me, and kiss me, and love me. To give him someone to live and fight for. And I would love him back, share his joy and his pain, give him whatever he needed me to, whenever he needed me to, and always be there for him. He'd be the prince and I'd be the princess, because it was, as Aphrodite had put it before, a love story. _Our_ love story. I loved him, and he loved me.

_That_ was what it meant for a boy and a girl to love each other. _That_ was what it meant to be together.

Doubt flashed across his face, like he was worried he'd said something wrong. But then again, he _did_ do that a lot.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I just…I had to think of that to keep going. To give me hope."

My blush grew even more intense. He had hung on to _that_ all this while. The thought that we'd one day be able to just _be _together had been all that sustained him since he had awoken.

"Forget I mentioned—"

"No!" I said. "No, Percy. Gods, that's so sweet."

Understatement. _Massive _understatement. It's impossible to describe how incredibly touching and romantic that was. My heart soared and touched the sky at the fresh appreciation of exactly how much he loved me.

And then, anger flared inside me. Not at the Problem, gods no. I wasn't going to let my hubris get in our way. Not now. Not ever again. But we would never be able to make this dream come true. Leo had ruined everything. No, not Leo. It was Gaia's stupid eidolons.

"It's just…we may have burned that bridge."

Pardon the ironic choice of figurative language.

"If we can't repair things with the Romans – well, the two sets of demigods have never gotten along. That's why the gods kept us separate. I don't know if we could ever belong there."

Percy didn't say anything, but he had that familiar fiery determination in his eyes again. He wasn't going to give up, until he got what he wanted for the two of us. I knew my Percy.

"I was having a nightmare when you woke me up," he said, changing the subject.

He told me what he'd seen.

Nothing I hadn't expected. I shook my head sadly when he described Nico's imprisonment in the bronze jar. And anger burned inside me when he told me about the giants planning some sort of Rome-destroying extravaganza that would include our painful deaths as the opening event.

"Nico is the bait," I murmured. "Gaia's forces must have captured him somehow. But we don't know exactly where they're holding him."

"Somewhere in Rome," Percy said. "Somewhere underground. They made it sound like Nico still had a few days to live, but I don't see how he could hold out so long with no oxygen."

"Five more days, according to Nemesis," I said. "The Kalends of July. At least the deadline makes sense now."

"What's a Kalends?"

I smirked. Back to how we were before – Percy being ignorant, me explaining stuff.

"It's just the Roman term for the first of the month. That's where we get the word _calendar_. But how can Nico survive that long? We should talk to Hazel."

"Now?"

I hesitated. "No. It can wait until morning. I don't want to hit her with this news in the middle of the night."

"The giants mentioned a statue," Percy recalled. "And something about a talented friend who was guarding it. Whoever this friend was, she scared Otis. Anyone who can scare a giant…"

I bit my lip, and my gaze drifted absently to the darkness below. Ever since my mother had given me that stupid coin, I'd been having dreams…

_Wait. My mother._

"Percy, have you seen Poseidon lately? Or had any kind of sign from him?"

He shook his head. "Not since…Wow. I guess I haven't thought about it. Not since the end of the Titan War. I saw him at Camp Half-Blood, but that was last August."

He paused.

"Why? Have you seen Athena?"

I didn't meet his eyes.

"A few weeks ago," I admitted. "It…it wasn't good. She didn't seem like herself. Maybe it's the Greek/Roman schizophrenia that Nemesis described. I'm not sure. She said some hurtful things. She said I had failed her."

"Failed her?"

The indignation in his voice made the level of confidence he had in me clear.

"How could you ever—?"

"I don't know," I said miserably.

I remembered why I'd even brought this up.

"On top of that, I've been having nightmares of my own. They don't make as much sense as yours."

I shuddered inwardly. Flashes of shadow. Stabs of pain. Horrible, rasping voices. A feeling of loneliness and abandonment, somehow cutting even deeper than the pain I felt from Percy's absence. And spiders. Lots and lots of spiders.

I wanted Percy hold me and kiss the pain away, and for the first time ever I didn't feel a twinge of guilt about feeling that way, but then that hated line of the Prophecy came back: _Wisdom's daughter walks alone_. Just when I'd made peace with the Problem and come to accept Percy's chivalrous protectiveness, I was forced to go on a quest all by myself, without him by my side.

It wasn't fair. But as Coach Hedge might say, "Life isn't fair, kid." There was no changing it.

So, for what was hopefully the last time, I would have to leave his arms, which were where I'd finally come to realise I belonged, and go forth, knowing I was alone. Knowing that when I looked over my shoulder, once more, Percy wouldn't be there to hold me, as it had been while we were separated. And so soon, too, after that half a year of agonising absence had finally subsided. As much as I hated it, the world depended on my completing this quest, whatever it was, without him. It was tempting to turn my back on it and forget the world, but I knew it was wrong.

I would have to do this alone. One last quest. Then I would come running back to Percy, never to leave him ever again.

Soon, I would have to return to the desolate, barren wasteland of life apart from him. But for now, while I had him by my side, while the rain was pouring on the desert, I was going to savour every drop of that life-giving water, every second I had with him. Then, after this last solo quest, I would come back to Percy, to spend the rest of forever with him. And, as long as he was breathing, I wouldn't have to worry any more.

I managed a faint smile at that hopeful prospect, but the idea of going on a deadly quest without Percy by my side made it seem so distant and improbable.

"Some romantic evening, huh? No more bad things until the morning." I kissed him again. "We'll figure everything out. I've got you back. For now, that's all that matters."

"Right," Percy said. "No more talk about Gaia rising, Nico being held hostage, the world ending, the giants—"

_No more talk about me walking alone._

"Shut up, Seaweed Brain," I ordered, playfully.

"Just hold me for a while."

I fell into his arms, letting them wrap snugly around me, like how they'd done so often while before Hera took him. It was funny, you know. I never thought that he'd be the one to hold my heart. But he'd put his arms around me, and I'd be home, even when I believed it'd be easier for him to let me go. When he was gone, I felt so cold and alone, empty and incomplete. But now, I was finally back in his embrace; safe. And I'd finally come to terms with the fact that his arms were the only place in the world where I truly belonged. I felt warm; inside and outside. I had my Percy back. We were where we were meant to be: together.

Simply being with Percy caused my eyelids to slowly grow heavier, and, finally at peace, I drifted off into the calmest, sweetest sleep I'd had in months.

**A/N Well, that answers that, doesn't it?**

** Now, some not-so-good news. I've got some things to take care of over the next few weeks, so you may not be hearing from me until maybe as late as mid-July. Sorry about that.**


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